Change to default avatar for Google account owners without Google+

In September, we announced some changes to the default avatar that Google account owners with Google+ enabled see when logged into their accounts. We’re now making those same changes for Google account owners who don’t have Google+ enabled. Starting today, if a Google account owner has not added a photo to his or her account, we’ll show a custom avatar with that account owner’s given-name initial (two-character given names will be fully displayed). In some cases where initials are not available, a plain colored avatar will be used instead. In addition, if a monogram can't be generated from a user's given name, their family name may be used as an alternative.*

This change will be visible in the Google Bar soon and will be gradually reflected across all Google products over the course of the coming months.

NOTE: Users with initials in scripts other than Latin, Cyrillic, Greek, Chinese, Japanese, and Korean will see this change later this year.

*Details updated on June 8, 2016, to reflect current behavior.

Launch Details
Release track:
Launching to both Rapid release and Scheduled release

Rollout pace:
Full rollout (1–3 days for feature visibility)

Impact:
All end users

Action:
Change management suggested/FYI

Note: all launches are applicable to all Google Apps editions unless otherwise noted

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