Google Wrestles With Privacy Bugs In Google+

CWmike writes "Google's new social networking site, Google+ — built to beat Facebook primarily on privacy features — has several privacy bugs the company is working to fix. While some enthusiastic beta testers clamor for Google to open the social networking site to everybody now, it's clear Google needs to address these issues before launching Google+ more broadly. Stumbling right out of the gate over privacy problems would likely doom Google+'s chances of emerging as a viable, realistic rival to Facebook, which rules the social networking market with about 700 million account holders. So far, beta testers have been mostly positive about Google+, particularly over its design to make it easier for users to share posts and content with different sets of people, as opposed with their entire list of contacts. Many of the existing privacy bugs in Google+ revolve around the site's mechanism to block users, according to this published list."

Comments

At least it's not like Buzz

[Daetrin]

I'm still not happy with their attempt to force us to use our real identities for social networking (though to be fair, it's not that that's any different from what Facebook tries to do) but i am definitely happy that they're going with a by invite beta test this time rather than rolling it all out to _everyone_ at once, privacy "bugs" and all, like they did with Buzz.

Re:At least it's not like Buzz

[RJFerret]

I have never used my "real" identity with Google, I do not know where you are getting the idea that you must?

Unlike Facebook, which actively would delete accounts made representing your virtual identities and insist on verifying real information.

The later was useless to me, as my entire presence for decades is based on me, not my real name (which happens to co-exist with a celebrity, making it useless).

With Google thankfully, there is no name requirement, no verification, no cross referencing, just me, and whatever I choose to put in the name fields, which is no different than it has been all along.

"as opposed with their entire list of contacts"

[gcnaddict]

as opposed with their entire list of contacts

Is this seriously a positive point? I've been able to select and block specific groups on my status messages, images, albums, etc. on Facebook for at least the last two years.

Come to think about it, Circles in Google+ are simply Facebook Lists and Groups merged together in disguise. I get better permission granularity, get all the group chat features I want in Groups... am I simply not seeing the allure Google+ supposedly offers? I'm all for tossing Facebook, but in all honesty, another centralized platform (especially one owned by an advertisement near-deity) just seems like a terrible idea.

I wouldn't mind an update on Diaspora right about now.

Re:"as opposed with their entire list of contacts"

[21mhz]

Come to think about it, Circles in Google+ are simply Facebook Lists and Groups merged together in disguise. I get better permission granularity, get all the group chat features I want in Groups... am I simply not seeing the allure Google+ supposedly offers?

A web UI that's convenient and easy to use. Facebook's privacy settings for posting are buried too deep to be handy. Facebook lists are also a lot more tedious to set up; in Google+ you can assign people to circles easily from many places, including the notification that they have added you.

Re:"as opposed with their entire list of contacts"

[gcnaddict]

and you see, I have a problem with this implementation.

Specifically, it takes me back to high school. It's fine and dandy, but half the goal of social networks is to keep networking, not to lock oneself to certain groups and isolate those groups from each other. I occasionally have a need to limit something to specific people, but I often want everyone to see my thoughts (as posted) to a) blend everyone's input together and b) give people an opportunity to expand their own social circles.

I just feel like Google's implementation here, while flashy, does nothing but isolate perspectives, ideas, and entire social groups even further. I suppose only time will tell whether Google's approach is better or worse, but I feel it will contribute to one of the few things the web allowed us to move away from: perspective bubbles.

Re:"as opposed with their entire list of contacts"

[Microlith]

I've been able to select and block specific groups on my status messages, images, albums, etc. on Facebook for at least the last two years.

As have I, however it is difficult and leaves you open to holes.

Specifically with Facebook, everyone is part of the "Friends" list, and you can't remove people from it without unfriending them, at which point they can see nothing. Some set of people you may not want to see all of your posts, so you can create a list and put people in these blocked lists. However, these changes are not retroactive. So if you create a group later on, you can't deny visibility of older posts to people in that group, and then you get into a complex mess of exceptions and multiple lists with different rules.

Now with Google+ these visibility settings are not retroactive either, however until you place someone in a group that a post is visible to they cannot see any posts. They are in a limbo-like "unclassified" state, only able to see public posts. As you place them into groups, their post visibility increases. Then if you want to really get complex you can create different circles, which are much easier to target with posts than general posts with lots of visibility rules that have to be applied.

After all, some people are more acquaintances or professional contacts whereas some people are friends and yet others are family. So you can much more tightly control what people can see, and who can see it. An easy way to think of it, at least for a Slashdotter, is the difference between a firewall that defaults to ALLOW and specifies what to DENY, versus a firewall that defaults to DENY and specifies what to ALLOW. One of these ways is more secure than the other. Google+, at first glance, seems to default to the more secure way.

Re:"as opposed with their entire list of contacts"

[EastCoastSurfer]

Then just post to all your circles or go twitter style and post public.

Re:"as opposed with their entire list of contacts"

[gcnaddict]

See, that's an opt-in procedure.

My point is that the opt-in nature of being able to broadcast isolates thoughts and perspectives, defeating the very point of a social network.

Re:"as opposed with their entire list of contacts"

[Urza9814]

I was under the impression that circles are specific to you, where Facebook's groups are not. In other words, if I have a circle called 'friends', and Joe has a circle called 'friends', Joe can be in my 'friends' circle without me being in his. Plus, groups take some effort to set up and such. I suppose that's what lists are for, but you don't get group chat and such with those. But Facebook groups always struck me as something designed for actual organizations. You'd make a group for your school club, not for the guys you tend to go to parties with. I guess that's what lists are for...I don't really know though, I just went to Facebook and couldn't figure out how to create a list...I mean I did once at one time back before they started automatically creating lists for networks...and haven't been able to figure out how to delete it since...

Not to mention that there are a ton of problems with Facebook's groups. I can't tell you how many pages I've had to duplicate from groups to fan pages. I mean, for a small org (like a school club), the term 'group' sounds more like what you want than a 'page'...so people always create them as groups, then find out a group doesn't actually work (can't do an open group, for example). So then you move to a fan page. Or you start with a fan page, find out 'groups' give a ton of features that fan pages don't (group chat, documents, for example), so you switch to that...only to discover it doesn't have the features of a page that you NEED, so you have to move back...it's just a huge mess. Not to mention that even Facebook themselves seem to be confused about the purposes of these based on how often they keep shuffling around the functions, interface, and rules for them...

If Google+ can come up with a groups/pages feature that WORKS, I will be dropping Facebook ASAP.

Re:"as opposed with their entire list of contacts"

[Abreu]

Just use "public" then...

(it suddenly occurs to me... Is it possible to have one contact belong to different groups at the same time? Like some nesting Venn Diagram of interconnected circles?)

Re:"as opposed with their entire list of contacts"

[m50d]

Yes, that's the whole point of google+. You might have a family circle, a work circle, and a "close friends" circle, and different people could be in one, two or all of them.

Re:Control...

[Lunix Nutcase]

What we need, is something open and decentralised.

Oh you mean that Dia...whatsitname that no one gives a shit about anymore?

Bug #1

[0123456]

Surely giving all you personal information to Google is a privacy bug?

Re:Bug #1

[geekoid]

Based on..what?
Historically, they have. Also, if you choose to leave you can export your info, and they delete you from there system, completely.

Of course if you share private information in a system people look at, then yeah, you loose privacy, but that's your OWN damn fault.

Re:Bug #1

[LateArthurDent]

I wish I had mod points. I totally agree that Google is not going to respect my privacy.

Why not? They've been pretty good about that thus far. When was the last time google shared your information with a third party?

Hell, their business model depends on keeping information about people to themselves. They don't want the advertisers to know who might be interested in their product. If they had a list, they'd advertise straight to us, and skip google as the middle-men. They want to tell the advertisers, "we know of people's habits and know people who might interested in buying from you. Pay us money and we'll display your ads to those people. In fact, let them pay you through google checkout, and we'll keep their e-mail address and credit card info from you as well, even if they become your customers.

Re:Bug #1

[TheGratefulNet]

I wish I had mod points. I totally agree that $COMPANY is not going to respect my privacy.

insanity: repeating the same thing and expecting different results.

Re:Questions About Privacy

[wjousts]

I suspect it's not so much inherently complexity as it is the desire to make money from the supposedly "private" data. In other words, the data is private until the corporation running the social network decides they can make money from it.

Are they on Facebook payroll or what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Has anyone read TFA or the original page that it refers to as 'list of known privacy bugs'? There isn't a single privacy bug mentioned there.

What Google+ Needs to Win

[Nom du Keyboard]

For Google+ to become a viable competitor to Facebook, they have to allow what Facebook prevents, starting with adult conversations and adult material. If not, then why jump off the USS Facebook at all since you're going to have to convince your friends to follow you anyway.

Not Big Issues

[psydeshow]

Reading through the list of known issues, and none of them are really show-stoppers, just bad housekeeping. Stuff like, when you block someone, their existing posts stick around. That's actually expected behavior in some systems. I might block you for being crazy today, but still want to go back and read what you posted three years ago when you were sane.

Of course the biggest privacy issue of all is missing:

When using Google+, one company has unfettered access to your searches, page views, ad clicks, social graph, email, calendar, chats, documents, photos, location, and interests.

Apple and Microsoft have (theoretically) had access to all of this via your desktop OS for years, and so has the NSA (via AT&T) so maybe it's no big deal. Still, Google, like Facebook, is an advertising company. You are not the customer -- you are the product.

Re:Not Big Issues

[Urkki]

You are not the customer -- you are the product.

Nah, we're only resources, and will become products only after Google starts to make us to be more monetizable, change us to be easier to sell. To do that, Google would have to change the way we read e-mail, search and browse the web, share videos and photos... Ok, fine, we're products.

Re:Also....

[wjousts]

Except your real name and gender. Which is public, whether you like it or not after July 31.

Re:Questions About Privacy

[neonleonb]

I know of one such case.

Suppose you're sharing something with a circle and allowing the recipients to comment on it. Those people will likely want to know who will see their comments, so they can know what's appropriate. However, them knowing that requires exposing who you shared with. So, it's a hard decision: either you have to expose some information about sharing, or you have to force people to comment without knowing who their audience is.

I think that trying to give users the ability to create information asymmetry (i.e. not telling everyone everything) fundamentally requires tradeoffs.

Re:Also....

[wjousts]

I'll grant you that. Facebook would have made the change, made your private profile public and you wouldn't have found out about it until some alert blogger decided to raise a fuss. So I guess Google clears the very low bar set by Facebook. WTG Google!

Re:Control...

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Yeah, but Mark Zuckerberg's a dick. Google is just greedy and monolithic. I'd much rather my digital soul be sold by Google to earn them profit than to have my digital soul continue to put profits in the pocket of someone of such douchebag status as Zuckerberg.

Besides, it's not like you have to use Google+, Facebook, or either. Competition just creates choice. It doesn't force change.

Re:Google+ Privacy Question

[RJFerret]

You can simply review their Privacy Policy, which is dang respectable IMO.

G-mail and Google Voice aren't really linked, but both display your contacts. I believe they also added the ability to place a call from the gmail interface?

Anyways, I've seen no correlation of those services to YouTube at all.

This page allows you to control whether Google profile info is used to customize ads or not (accessible without Google+).

If you are paranoid about searches, simply disable cookies (or use Firefox's Private Browsing), or Scroogle.

Finally, Google has it's Dashboard, which summarizes the services you have accounts with them, with links to custom privacy policies or any that are different.

Wow, I sound all Google knowledgeable, but honestly, I just searched for their privacy policy and clicked a few links, heh, they do make it easy.

Re:Is it even possible...

[RoFLKOPTr]

Will anyone ever create a social network firmly rooted in personal privacy? Are the two mutually exclusive?

How in the hell would a social network work when you keep everything private? That's called a diary. They sell those at Ideal Stationary for $15 if you want a fancy one.