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."

Comments

Consciously opt out?

[improfane]

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?

Re:Consciously opt out?

[cychoi]

How do I opt out of Google+?

https://plus.google.com/u/0/downgrade/

Re:Google+

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Paranoia much?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Paranoia much?

[ImaLamer]

It's as bad as people saying they don't want to use Facebook because, gasp, "they" will learn about you. I worked as a marketing database analyst - they have known about you for years. For pennies I could buy demographic data (per household) for my metro area telling me if someone was likely to own pets, what type of money they made, what their job was, their ethnic background and other mundane details. If people are really concerned about their privacy, as much as they claim here, I wonder how they even get to Slashdot. How did they sign up for Internet service - if stolen, how did they get their PCs? Did they ever do anything that could have been sent up to companies like Experian? Because if so - "they" already know.

And really - "they" don't care. Then just want you to buy more tanning visits.

Re:Paranoia much?

[Anonymous Coward]

There's a difference between the USA and Europe. In Europe, companies are not allowed to sell your data on to other people, and it must be used for the purpose it was provided. Europeans feel extremely and personally threatened by the US attitude of "All your information is open, and everyone knows about you".

The "Default deny" mindset is deeply ingrained in the European mindset, due to the violent history of the continent. It's Darwinian: In times of war, loose lips will get you killed.

Re:Poor Liddle Microsoft Troll

[Vanderhoth]

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.

Re:Safety first.

[YttriumOxide]

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.

Re:Google+

[Kjella]

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.