Yes you can still write me. . . I think

October 13, 2012 8:17 PM

Does blocking someone on google+ also prevent them from sending you email?

I know this should be a no-brainer to, well, google, but I think I'm suffering from overgeneral search terms. Can anyone find a place where this is clearly laid out?

posted by endless_forms to Technology (10 answers total)

Response by poster: And by "email" I mean "gmail".
posted by endless_forms at 8:22 PM on October 13, 2012

Even if it does, what's to keep said person from signing up for a different GMail address or one on another service?
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 8:24 PM on October 13, 2012

The answer is no. It wouldn't make any sense for that to be the case.
posted by HuronBob at 8:28 PM on October 13, 2012

Response by poster: I found, by accident, that blocking a person on G+ also blocks them on google chat, for instance, and that there are other integrations of the block function across google properties. To be clear, I want to be able to block a person on G+ but still permit them to gmail me, and I am feeling slightly, perhaps absurdly, paranoid on the topic.
posted by endless_forms at 8:33 PM on October 13, 2012

if you would like to test this out, I would be glad to have you block me on g+ and then see if I could still e/mail me.

my gmail address is in my profile, contact me if you want to give this a shot to ease your mind.
posted by HuronBob at 8:41 PM on October 13, 2012 [1 favorite]

Or... email "you"...
posted by HuronBob at 9:01 PM on October 13, 2012

Here's a Google Help page about this:

Blocking someone from within the Chat list or a Chat mole does not also block the person in Google+. So, although they won't be able to chat with you, they'll still be in your Circles and be able to see your content. However, if you block the person in Google+, in addition to being removed from your circles and extended circles, they will also be unable to chat with you in any Google Chat property (i.e. Gmail, orkut, iGoogle).

I interpret that as saying that when you block someone in Google+, the only other thing this does is to prevent the person from "chatting" with you in anything Google-related. So, that would imply that you can still exchange emails in Gmail, since email isn't "chat."

That link also has information on how to "unblock" someone, in case that's what you want to do.
posted by John Cohen at 9:09 PM on October 13, 2012

By the way, since you mentioned having trouble Googling for this, that link was the second result when I Googled [google plus gmail block].
posted by John Cohen at 9:11 PM on October 13, 2012

I am 98 percent certain that my former spouse has blocked me on Gchat and Google+, and we use Gmail exclusively to communicate.
posted by Etrigan at 9:16 PM on October 13, 2012

Response by poster: Okay. So, the Google help page addresses chat, but it doesn't positively say that gmail won't be blocked, which was what I was looking for. But. . . I woke up smarter than I went to bed, and experimented with a dummy account, and have confirmed that blocking someone on G+ doesn't interfere with their ability to send gmail.

I'm often irritated and frustrated with the degree of cross-product linkage in social media and other internet options, and I'm glad my paranoia was unwarranted here.

Thanks, all.
posted by endless_forms at 11:30 AM on October 14, 2012