Hey Alec,

Thanks for your thoughts - I see your point, though think the functionality could be made available without increasing complexity. Circles would work in exactly the same way as they do now; there would just be an extra button available to those who wanted to use it to bring up a security panel (similar to google docs sharing functionality). If the default for a circle is for it to be a private group (i.e. as it is now), users only need to ignore the "share this group button" to avoid any complexity.

It looks like a few other people are having similar thoughts, so opinion on this area's certainly split: http://garry.posterous.com/google-circles-is-high-work-and-l...

Thanks again,

JB