John Simpson, a consumer advocate at Consumer Watchdog, echoed the opinion. "It's difficult to analyze Google+'s features because I do not have access to the project [but] if they are sincerely attempting to solve issues before opening it up to the general public, that's a good thing. Perhaps Google executives have learned something from their past blunders," he said.

Peter Eckersley, a senior staff technologist for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. said Google has shown that it understands the value of being "loud and clear" about stamping out privacy bugs in its user interfaces with a limited launch period. "We'll have to see what Plus looks like in a few months time in order to give it a fully critical privacy review," Eckersley said.

In the meantime, it's important for people to understand that, even if Google+ delivers on all of its privacy-protection features, there are areas that aren't covered by it or by any other social networking service, he said.

"Google Plus is clearly designed to give people better control over their privacy with respect to their family, co-workers and friends, [but] there are other types of privacy that it simply can't provide. If you want a communications tool where the information you're sharing can't be read by Google, or by governments or lawyers in western countries, Google Plus isn't the service to use. Nobody has succeeded in building a social network that can offer those kinds of privacy protections yet," he said.

By showing its cards early with a limited release, Google risks tipping off competitors, primarily Facebook, to the features that it hopes will give Google+ a competitive edge. In fact, already Facebook has responded to Google+'s multi-person video chat feature with a similar -- albeit more limited -- capability to offer one-on-one video chat through a partnership with Skype.