Thomas Gagnon was arrested after his ex-girlfriend, who has a restraining order against him, received an email inviting her to join Google+ from Gagnon's email address, according to ABC News.
After receiving the email from Gagnon, the ex-girlfriend went to the police and said he had violated the restraining order, ABC News reported.
Gagnon was arrested and jailed with a $500 bail, but claims he did not send the email, Google did, according to ABC News.
In "a worst-case scenario," an internet privacy expert says this is one of the things that can happen when privacy laws are stepped on by internet companies, ABC News reported.
Gagnon is expected in court on Feb. 6 and his attorney Neil Hourihan has stated he has no idea how the invitation was sent and insists his client did not do it, according to ABC News.
Attorney Bradley Shear of Maryland is an expert on Internet privacy and said Gagnon is most likely telling the truth, ABC News reported.
Shear also pointed out other Google+ users have complained about the automated emails being sent without their consent, ABC News reported. In a Google forum from 2011 and 2012 titled "Prevent automatic email invitations to Google+?" angry users complained about not being able to opt out of the automated emails.
"If he didn't send it -- if Google sent it without his permission and he was jailed for it -- Google could be facing major liability," Shear told ABC News.
Google+ is a service which allows users to group and organize their contacts as they please, and when the user adds a new contact, or even moves an old contact to a new group, Google+ automatically sends them an invitation to join the service, according to Shear, ABC News reported.
A Google+ community manager responded to the complaints in the forum by stating "the emails that go out alert people of your activity on Google+, and more importantly the sharing of content with them. We send them an email when they aren't yet on Google+ so they know that you are out there in the world [of] G+. They should only incur this email once," according to ABC News.
This means Google+ will send an email to anyone in your contacts, "whether it's your doctor, your lawyer, your mistress, or your ex-fiancee who's got a restraining order against you," Shear said, according to ABC News, adding that this is "a perfect example of what happens when a company oversteps its bounds."
