Think twice before using Google+ with corporate and education Google Apps accounts

Anyone who plans to enable Google+ features on their Google Apps account for work or school should make sure to note the privacy policy before proceeding.

Yesterday, Google began allowing customers of its Google Apps accounts — the company’s enterprise suite of web-based applications for documents, email and more — to sign up for its social network Google+. App accounts can then gain access to all of Google+’s features, like Circles, video chat Hangouts and more.

However, as The Next Web’s Matthew Panzarino notes, doing so will allow the Apps account administrator to both access and modify all of your Google+ activity. This is pointed out in Google’s Help Center, which states:

Because you’re signing up for Google+ with your corporate email address, your Google Apps administrator retains the right to access your Google+ data and modify or delete it at any time.

Basically that means anything you share — notes, status updates, videos, games, photos and more — on Google+ can be accessed by your boss.

The message from Google, at least to me, seems to be that you should either keep work and play in separate universes, or be extremely conscious that you’re mixing the two when you use Google+.