Google+ recently rolled out this feature that when you +1’d a post, people in your extended circles (who also added you to their circles) may see this +1’d post (as activity update) in their incoming streams.

This is a cool feature that would help that post you +1’d to reach a larger audience up to your extended circles by default. There is no guarantee this will always happen but this gives Google+ an additional signal so that they consider to show this post to your extended circles.

Here is an example of how this works (refer image below)

Here in this example, Google+ News +1’d Vic Gundotra’s post and now followers (and their own followers) of our Google+ News page may see this +1’d post in their home stream. Prior to this change you’ll only see posts (and not +1’s) shared by your circles.

But not everyone likes or wants their +1’d post to appear in their circles or extended circles stream. The good news is Google+ lets us to control how we want to handle this +1 activity update.

Steps to disable or customize +1 activity update

1. Goto your Google+ app settings (https://plus.google.com/u/0/apps)
2. Click on the Google Tab
3. Click on edit link
4. On the following dialog choose your favorite choice in the circles drop down (You may change from Extended Circles to Only You so that nobody else see’s your +1’d post. Refer dialog images below.)
5. Click Save, You’re done.

Who can see your +1’s on posts activity dialog with Extended Circles, Public, Your circles, Only you and Custom option

More control of choosing Individual circles or people under Custom selection

Google+ by default applies Extended Circles to all users and using above app you can customize according to what you see fit for your circles.

Some additional points to note

• Circles or people will only see a post if they have access to it (which means, you can be assured that +1’ing a privately shared post won’t be shown this way)
• Like posts, this +1’d post may also be shown in Google search results based on currently logged in user (above rule still applies)
• You have full control of your +1’d activity under the Log tab that appears next to Google tab (or use this link)
• You may review, delete the +1 activity or even undo the +1 activity from the above Log tab. Undoing +1 activity will also remove from the post which means your allowed circles won’t see the +1 activity update.

You may also want to checkout how to hide +1 tab on your Google+ profile? that allows to control +1’s appearing on your profile.

UPDATE: We updated this post with a new image (previous image had a re-shared post and owner of that post requested for removal).