Surprise, surprise! Google is making another effort to integrate Google+ elements into another product of the company! And with this latest attempt, some of you might have woke up, opened their Gmail account and found out a lot of Google+ notifications. Yay…?

Google’s software engineer, Zohair Hyder, from the Gmail team has posted that Google is basically expanding its prior integration between Google+ and Gmail and from now and over the next few weeks, Gmail users will begin receiving notifications from Google+ stream directly to their inbox.

Whenever other people will comment or +1 some of the user’s Google+ posts, it will immediately appear on his/hers Gmail inbox. Furthermore, the user can reply to those people directly from Gmail and it will be posted to Google+ stream at once. Here’s a screenshot for a Google+ conversation taking place on Gmail:

I have to admit that I see this new integration as pretty useless and even slightly bothering. Why do I need another product to tell me what’s happening on my Google+ stream? I already have this red notification thing popping on the top Google bar that follows me everywhere.

Moreover, people that are very active on Google+ (yes, they do exist) can find this integration as a hassle. Just imagine receiving tons of Google+ updates on top of all your emails. For some, it may become almost impossible to keep track their Gmail account.

Luckily, on the Google+ settings page, it can be tuned and even completely opt-out- Users can set if to receive notifications just when their name is mentions, when someone comments on their post, tag them in photo and more possibilities. From that angle, it actually pretty customizable and friendly.

What I found interesting, is the difference between this specific integration and all additional Google+ integrations with other products. This actually doesn’t designated to bring users INTO Google+ but in fact, it would potentially keep them OUT (engaging with Google+ on Gmail).

I’m also speculating that this new addition is also somewhat of a response to Facebook’s last month effort to push furthermore its email service and create the ultimate social network and email combination.

Anyway, this is obviously the latest integration between two of Google’s product that can share the user private information as a result from the new privacy policy which rolled out on March.