Google+ announced these changes in a blog post that the "Who can notify you" feature is being brought out as it was much in demand from the users. The post revealed that many Google+ users were expecting privacy controls on these lines. The privacy option provided by the Circles, where you could choose who you shared with whose content you wanted to see was fast becoming a limited choice for the users. They wanted to control who they heard from as in who could send them notifications.

According to Google+, "By altering these settings, you can control who you'll get notifications from, if they:

• Share with you individually
  
  


• Select ‘Notify about this post' (when sharing to a circle you're in)
  
  


• +Mention your name
  
  


• Invite you to a hangout
  
  



• Invite you to play or send you messages from a game
  
  

You'll still be notified if someone comments on one of your posts or adds you to a circle."

Google+ has by default set the "Who can notify you" setting to Extended circles. However, if an user wishes, he can change it back to his Circles.

Why Was This Feature Needed?

Like any social network, Google+ also saw its share of spammers that sent out notifications to the more popular users. There was no other way to deal with the little red flags of notifications on the profile than clicking them, reading them and then deleting them. This meant a lot of unnecessary work for the users, and somehow dampened the whole social experience. Google+ received a lot of feedbacks and request regarding the same and that is why this feature was rolled. No doubt this much awaited and demanded for feature will have people waiting for further updates.

What do you think of this feature update? Do you want anything else changed? Do share your thoughts. For the other Google+ feature updates, see this.