This feature really grinds my gears. They should at least allow a feature to disable showing the picture/name until the user has logged in. In some cases I'm handing out my email to avoid handing out my actual identity because I don't want to be spammed or followed. Until then I will continue to use a false name and photo under my accounts signed up to google (apart from the one work email I have thru them).
> AFAIK the picture is only shown if Google is reasonably confident that it is actually you trying to log in.
I didn't know about this feature, but I often saw pictures of people I know when I tried. Apparently, it seems that for example just sharing IP address is sufficient to trigger this reasonable confidence. Not sure what other ways there may be. But indeed, it didn't work for a few random strangers from LKML I just tried.
Thank you for this information - seems to be so - just tried a VPN from Canada and it only shows the email that I entered. However I still would like to disable it on the off chance that someone in the future messes up. May never happen but I'd like to not take that risk. Thank you none-the-less as that has eased my mind a little bit.
