Schmidt: G+ 'Identity Service,' Not Social Network

David Gerard writes "Eric Schmidt has revealed that Google+ is an identity service, and the 'social network' bit is just bait. Schmidt says 'G+ is completely optional,' not mentioning that Google has admitted that deleting a G+ account will seriously downgrade your other Google services. As others have noted, Somewhere, there are two kids in a garage building a company whose motto will be 'Don't be Google.'"

Comments

Don't Be Evil? That's just a lie

[the_B0fh]

On one hand, I cannot believe Google is doing this.

On the other hand, I cannot believe I fell for Google's "Don't Be Evil". While I used to wish for Google Wallet to come out and take over from Evil Paypal, at least, with Paypal, you know what they are doing. Always doing everything they can screw you over.

Google promises you with sweetness and honey... and then betrays you, which is even worse.

And for everyone who says you don't have to use G+ - it is *NOT* G+, it is Google Profile that is the problem, G+ is a component of Google Profile. If your Google Profile is disabled, a shit load of other services are impacted. Yeah, don't use Google. Sure.

Looking for alternatives now.

Re:Don't Be Evil? That's just a lie

[jhoegl]

An optional service that is tied to other optional services.

You mad about your free optional services bro?

I use google for email, maps, and homepage for RSS feeds.

Any of those are taken away, I can find alternatives very easily.

Seriously!

[whisper_jeff]

Would it be too much to ask for people, when submitting a story, to keep their bias out of it and let us form our own opinion. If you want to voice your _opinion_, save it for the comments section. Let's leave story summaries to, you know, summaries.

This summary couldn't have been more obviously anti-Google biased if it tried. It's utterly tedious trying to stay informed about geek news while being bombarded with such overwhelming biases. Its annoying in the comments section, but that's where I expect to see it.

I know, I know. I must be new here...

alternatives?

[Anonymous Coward]

Every time a post about G+ or Facebook pops up I am reminded of the good old days of IRC when you could socialize with your friends without going through an evil multinational corporation.
I can't even count the number of friends that I don't talk to anymore only because they abandoned IRC, or even real life get-togethers, for Facebook (and G+).

Re:There it is

[Gaygirlie]

Straight from the horse's mouth:
You are the product, not the consumer.

No. Your HABITS are the product. Google is a marketing machine and they sell insight into current, past and future trends in various groups, and for that they need to follow people's habits. That insight is their product. Google however does not sell people; you cannot buy information on any specific person from Google.

Besides, how is this news? Wasn't it obvious already from before? Did you think Google has trees that sprout cash every spring so they can keep on offering completely free services to people without Google going bankrupt? ALL similar free services monitor their users for anything relevant and share portions of that data forth, Google is in no way an exception or "the one, evil megacorporation out there to suck out your soul" or anything like that.

As long as Google doesn't sell specific people out and anonymize their data I personally couldn't care less, I'm getting hugely useful services without losing anything and I'm going to continue using them.

So just don't do it

[rudy_wayne]

Regarding people who are concerned about their safety, he said G+ is completely optional. No one is forcing you to use it.

Exactly right.

Google may have started as a couple of college students creating a search engine and Facebook may have started as a couple of college students creating a social networking web site. But those days a long gone. Google and Facebook are not in the search or social networking business, they are in the ADVERTISING business. Their business model is now one thing and one thing only: collecting as much personal information about you as they can so they can sell it to advertisers.

If you really seriously have a problem with this, then DON'T FUCKING USE THEM. Seriously, how hard is that to figure out.

Re:Don't Be Evil? That's just a lie

[John Hasler]

It's really quite possible that they already know exactly who you are so they have all the info they need,

Then they would already have known that Violet Blue was really Violet Blue. This and other cases indicate that they (and Facebook) haven't the foggiest idea exactly (or even approximately) who you are. And don't care.

Re:Don't Be Evil? That's just a lie

[poetmatt]

wha?

you can pretty much make your entire profile invisible on g+. change the profile photo to something random, use a fake name, make sure every post is only seen by certain people.

Do you have any idea what you're talking about?

Yes, people have gotten locked out but it's rare and fake names *don't* get locked.

It's about Profiles, not +; and what a ban does

[duhorg]

Statements from Google which are on record and verifiable, versus anecdotal evidence of what happened to some undefined person. I somehow think I'm going to choose to believe Google on this one.

The current side effects of a Google Profile suspension, with confirmations by Google staff in various G+ posts, are:

• The Profile is removed from public view.
• Existing Google+, Google Buzz, and Google Reader shared items/posts are removed from view (whether they were originally public or limited).
• Access to Google+ is blocked (more correctly, limited to only viewing public posts).
• Access to Google Buzz is blocked.
• Access to Google Reader (not just its sharing features) is blocked.

...It's hard for me to find the confirmation right now, but there is _some_ effect against Picasa. I cannot remember the exact detail. I think (but cannot yet confirm) that it removes public albums from public view.

Any other side effects reported until now have been labeled bugs and were not experienced by everyone consistently. Of particular note, a Profile suspension currently does NOT (modulo reappearing bugs?):

• block access to Gmail, Google Voice, or any other top-level service;
• block or unsubscribe from Google Groups;
• force the use of Google 2-factor authentication (which would entail providing an identifiable phone number);
• prevent the use of Google Checkout (or by extension, prevent the purchase of Android apps);
• prevent the use of Android features unrelated to the three major services mentioned (+, Buzz, Reader).

So that's the state of the world today. Whether it stays that way is up to debate, and I posited that question in my post that clarified the name policies as being an artifact of Profiles (including a reference proving that users can be banned without even having access to Google+ to begin with).