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Google Deleting Private Profiles
An anonymous reader writes "Google announced that it will no longer support private Google Profiles after July 31. The move comes as Google is rolling out its latest social experiment, Google+. Those who have already been admitted to Google+ will see their Google+ profiles replace their Google Profiles. At the moment the only information Google requires users to reveal is their name and gender."
I never had a Google Profile and opted out of Buzz as soon as I could.
How do I opt out of Google+?
What even was Google Profile?
Slashdot needs Geekcode | Can anyone recommend any good SCIFI? My tastes: Foundation, Startide Rising, CITY, Ringworld,
If your Google profile was ALREADY public, that's true. If your Google profile was private (as you would expect from those who care about privacy issues) your are prompted and asked if you want it to become public in order to join Google+. If by the end of this month you do not make it public it will just be deleted, not automatically disclosed. The only mandatory information in the public profile is name and age.
Well just don't use it.
I don't use facebook, nor linkedin, nor google, I will not use google+.
I feel very good, have friends, work, hobbies and interest, and don't waste time on social networks trying to find new friends while leaving behind the old real ones.
Social networks are just a fraud.
Unlike some of the comments here state, Google+ does *not* make all of your stuff public the second you enter it. For each field that you fill in there is a box that states (initially) "Everyone on the web", once you've filled in the field you get the chance to chance every bit of profile information and decide exactly who it goes to. With your real name for example you can choose to share it with everyone, only people in your circles, people in extended circles (friends of friends), with a specific circle i.e. family only or work colleagues only or you can choose to keep it completely private, or you can just not fill it in. As stated in TFA there are only 2 pieces of info you are *required* to give. If you're that paranoid you can make your nickname public or just to IRC friends for example so you know they'll get a piece of info that they can identify you by but not the rest of it.
It's really a great system in my opinion, I love the flexibility and fine-grained settings, miles better than Facebook.
Also for the record this: "When you join Google+, your profile is already public to the whole internet and search engines. And because it's Google, they have already indexed it by then. There is no way to set it private before it's already public." is complete crap as the settings I mentioned above are applied before you even hit the "Save changes" button on the profile page.
At least take the time to learn about the thing you're publicly slating, though this is slashdot so I guess you can't expect any actual facts here anymore.
As a parent trying to guard the safety of my children online, I can't allow them to have these accounts, for the exact reason cgeys points out. It's sad, because here's this wonderful tool, that I have to treat like a gun in the house.
- Dan.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
I have been noticing the new Google+ tracking cookie popping up across the web as well. (I blocked it with Ghostery.) Not sure what it does, perhaps someone could explain?
No Inflation Taxation without Representation
Read their privacy statement, because you sound like an idiot, they dont keep ip addresses for years on end. You alos dont have a profile just from having a Youtube account. It's sad how many idiot slashdotters fall for this MS/Facebook Privacy FUD. http://www.engadget.com/2011/05/12/facebook-admits-hiring-pr-firm-to-smear-google/
I agree.
My wife and I are about to have our first child and I've had to ask my friends and family not to post pictures of it on facebook. I want my child to have the choice to develop their own online identity and not have to worry that some day when they go to find employment some HR jackass isn't going to google them and use what other people have posted against them.
The responses I get when asking people not to post pictures of my kid online are ridiculous. Everything from "Oh, you're just paranoid" to "Well, I'm going to anyway.". It's pretty sad when a parent can't make a decision to protect their own child without their own parents giving them a hard time.
The other issue is that when kids are young they don't think/realize that when they post pictures of them and their friends drinking under age, smoking pot or other illegal activities it's out there and anyone can find it. All it takes is for them to just be caught/tagged in a picture with others doing it and they're up the creek.
Can someone elaborate please? Might help me decide if I care about this or not.
The only mandatory information in the public profile is name and age
Thereby ensuring that a large percentage of sign ups lie about one, or both.
I got an invite into Google+, was on for a very short time (around 10 minutes I would guess), in which I already had several people "pre-add" me to their lists - for a brand new account (so how exactly have these relationships been formed, or is this some Buzz "feature" where certain people are automatically just linked to my Google+ account?)
It's probably worth pointing out that somebody "adding you" in Google+ is not the same as in Facebook or Twitter. Adding somebody to one of your circles in Google+ means you can post stuff TOWARDS them but it does not mean you can see anything of theirs other than their public profile. It's one way only unless they add you to their circle too and even then something you post to a circle I am in won't appear on my default stream. It appears on my incoming stream and I can then choose whether to include things from your circle in my default stream. Also with every post you can choose who (in terms of circles or individuals) gets to see it or not.
It's not perfect and could possibly still be open to abuse by marketeers but they seem to have made a better stab at it that Facebook
I don't think giving your real name on the internet is a good idea, at all. Because of the special way Internet work, some criminal can collect a lot of information about you, and use that information against you. Where you live, what are you friends, what is the name of your childrens, his age,...
Hi, my name is Benjamin de Waal. My alias here is "yttriumoxide", but elsewhere I usually go by "YttriumOx" or similar.
I currently live in Hannover, Germany. Specifically, in the suburb called "Heideviertel". However I was born in Dunedin, New Zealand and have travelled rather extensively, including living in 5 countries so far and visiting somewhere in the region of 40 (I have a list somewhere, but not with me right now).
I have a lot of friends all over the world, on account of having lived in many different places.
My wife's name is Steffi (Stefanie) and my 3 month old daughter is Sam (Samantha).
Honestly, I don't feel in the slightest bit insecure about "criminals" getting this information or "using it against me" (and no-one has ever effectively explained to me how this information could be used against me anyway (or especially "why" it would be) other than what I consider to be paranoid ramblings). You can search online for the above information and probably find out a lot more about me, including seeing pictures, learning about my interests (including illegal activities), finding out what I do for a job and what I've done in the past, etc. None of this bothers me. If I didn't expect it to be public, I wouldn't have put it online to begin with.
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
I feel very good, have friends, work, hobbies and interest, and don't waste time on social networks trying to find new friends while leaving behind the old real ones.
Maybe your friends are just as odd as you then, nothing really wrong with that but the reason most of us feel the social pressure is because almost all my "old real" friends now are on Facebook. That's where they chatter and share pictures and make events and whatnot, it's not that they're purposely shutting you out but you're the special case. You're the one "being difficult", why can't you just get a profile just like everybody else? Sometimes they plain old forget that they have to tell me via a different means than everybody else. So I caved, my profile is on Facebook. And if everyone moved to Google+, I'd probably have to follow. If that hasn't happened to you, well then you're in the same group as my parents, they're not on Facebook, have no reason to join Facebook and good for them. It doesn't help everyone else who feel they have to either sign up or they'll drift apart from the friends they already have.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I don't take such a hard line. You're right drugs are bad and should be eliminated. Although, I don't think everyone deserves to be reported to the police for one stupid mistake. That's something a parent should be left to deal with initially and escalated to police if the parent is ineffective.
I know plenty of good people that did drugs and drank under age that went on to do good things. Had they been caught and charged in their earlier years they probably wouldn't have had a chance to do anything else.
For example there are several presidents (Obama, Bush and Clinton to name a few recent ones) that admitted to doing drugs. Would they have become president if they had been caught earlier? I have my doubts.
This war on drugs is working out just great for us. Any day now, we'll have it all wrapped up and be done with it.
Seriously? Doing the same thing over and over again expecting a different result is the definition of insanity. My state can't afford to pay its bills and is thinking about privatizing state prisons, and you want to lock up kids being kids and ruin their future. When I was 18, the drinking age was 18 and nobody had a shit fit until MADD convinced Reagan to blackmail the states into raising the age. I'm all for locking up violent criminals, but the sheer number of new "offenses" being dreamed up every year is why we have the largest percentage of incarcerated population in the civilized world. All these paranoid, law-and-order-at-any-cost, types are just plain stupid...