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Ever since I started using Google+, it has added the people in my G+ circles as new entries to my Gmail contacts. The only information, apparently, in these new contact entries, is those people's G+ profile and sometimes their Gmail address.

Gmail Contacts has a "Find Duplicates" feature that allows you to merge duplicate Gmail contacts. I have an Android phone, so for many of the people I am connected to on G+, I also have phone numbers stored in Gmail contacts.

These contacts are apparently separate from the ones added by Google+. If I use the find duplicates feature to merge them, will their phone numbers now be associated with their Google+ profiles in Google's databases? Will this information be visible to other people? In short, will this violate my friends' privacy?

(I seem to remember some scare where Facebook might or might not have grabbed phone numbers and associated them with Facebook profiles by picking them out of friends' phonebooks on their smartphones.)

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These contacts are apparently separate from the ones added by Google+. If I use the find duplicates feature to merge them, will their phone numbers now be associated with their Google+ profiles in Google's databases? Will this information be visible to other people? In short, will this violate my friends' privacy?

No, it depends on their privacy settings.

I seem to remember some scare where Facebook might or might not have grabbed phone numbers and associated them with Facebook profiles by picking them out of friends' phonebooks on their smartphones.)

That wasn't a scare, neither were the numbers "picked up", it was opt-in.

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  • I don't want 2 numbers for every contact I have. How can I merge them?
    – user20367
    May 23, 2012 at 3:46

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