Credit: Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
- Google Messages now lets you control who sees your profile picture and name through the Profile discovery feature.
- Users can choose from three privacy settings: everyone they message, only contacts, or no one.
- You can also completely turn off profile discovery in the app settings.
Love it or hate it, Google Messages is here to stay. While the app may lag behind popular texting apps, Messages has become the de-facto leader for RCS messaging on Android. For ardent Google Messages users, Google is now rolling out privacy options for the Profile discovery feature, giving users more control over who can see their profile.
We spotted the privacy options for Profile discovery in an APK teardown report last month, and Google is now rolling it out widely to users in the stable branch. At app startup, users are greeted with the “Customize how you are seen” page, and they have to choose whom to show their name and picture to: people they message, only their contacts, or no one.