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The Google+ Name Game Continues
theodp writes "'Sticks and stones will break my bones,' the old nursery rhyme goes, 'but names will never hurt me.' Unless, of course, you're on Google+. While touting what it calls a move toward a more inclusive naming policy for Google+, the search giant's Name Policy would still make Sister Aloysius Beauvier smile. Names like 'Doctor Stan Livingston,' 'Bill Smithwick DDS,' and 'Rev. Jim Copley, S. P.' are cited as examples of violations that could cost you your Google+ privileges. And since new Google account users are reportedly now forced to join Google+, one wonders if the Name Policy might even preclude one from establishing one of those adorable dear.sophie.lee or dear.hollie accounts."
Alright, well who cares? If Google shoots itself in the butt by destroying / tying in social with its search, a new search contender will most likely step up and fill the 2nd place void. Maybe it'll be Bing.
Just let the market correct itself.
There is a way to avoid creating a google+ account when signing up. Just go to https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount
I think we're jumping the gun here if we assume Google is going to count all users as active users, especially since they haven't actually done this yet. If they do do this that's another story, but they could just as easily use a more fair criteria for counting users, such as perhaps only counting users who have visited Google+ specifically N times over the past month or have shared content over Google+, etc.
Other than that issue anyway there really is no big deal about forcing Gmail and Google+ account creations. If the new user never uses them they won't even know they exist (though the public profile bit does trouble me some), so it seems to me Google is just trying to streamline the account creation process.
Going to invalidate my mod points (I already modded you informative) just to give a clarification:
I tested this out myself, and it's true that it takes you to a page to create your google plus account, and does not give you the option to skip. This is terrible design.
However, if you just leave the bloody page, you have a google account without g+.
My other sig is clever.
That's the old new account url that will be discontinued soon. They're replaced it with the new one in almost every service already, they started with gmail yesterday. I'm sure the change will be done soon.
You can also delete the G+ profile. Took me about 30 seconds to figure out how, and about 5 to actually do so.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Who says I have a business? I spent 3 weeks getting my doctorates online, and I'm damn well going to use them. At every opportunity.
---Dr. A. Coward PhD DDS MD DIM
no, it isn't. although I've been using Skarecrow/skarecrow77 for so long, about 18 years now, that it is essentially an extra name so associated with me that you can identify things I wrote on the web ages ago using it. it's me.
That aside, in insecure settings where you can't control who sees things you post, and you risk running afoul of juvenile (or juvenile-minded) internet delinquents who want nothing more than to fuck up your day, there is a need for some middle-layer of semi-anonymity. With Google+, on the other hand, so far as I know you have the ability to decide -exactly- who can see anything you post, so presumably you can limit your exposure to the internet delinquents to virtually nil.
There are any number of internet forums where fake people can talk to fake people. Google+ appears to be a place where real people talk to real people. I kind of like having at least one or two outlets like that. People are much more civilized. I can (and do) visit the less restrained corners of the internet when I want to witness the John Gabrial greater internet fuckwad theory at work, but the entire internet doesn't necessarily have to be like that.
The thing I don't understand is, if Google has set the ground rules saying "this is what Google+ is going to be like", why are the people who dislike what google+ is about so eager to join with their fake names?
It's like going to an NRA meeting when you hate guns, and being upset that people there are packing. Why did you want to go in the first place? And if you're really that set on going for some reason, you should at least realize you have to play by their ground rules while at their party.
Sigh, I wish this meme would die. They don't sell people, they sell ad space. I realize that all the cool kids are into accusing Google of slavery, but let's at least try to maintain one tiny iota of accuracy.
Oh, goodness, they must be terrified. You must have been some activist.
We all care; If Bing has to try to beat Google by getting better then there is hope of better things. If Google loses to Bing by getting worse then Microsoft won't feel any need to work to improve things.
Remember that Netscape, once they realised that Microsoft had found a way to destroy them with illegal market manipulation, panicked and started to rewrite their whole product which meant that, even if the US justice department had intervened earlier, there would have been little left to save.
I just went through the Google registration process. The whole article is a lie, of course; as you would expect from any Microsoft associated publication; your Google+ account is only activated later on by explicitly signing up. Unfortunately even I, who have done Google registration quite a few times, didn't realise that until after I had signed up for Google+ with my new account. I have verified that even if you make the same mistake as I did you can trivially delete your Google+ features from your Google account.
Summary: as usual recently the first post is someone who manages to get Microsoft sponsored lies into place. Unfortunately Google opened themselves up for this by having an unclear registration process.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Well, check all those accounts supernatural psychic ability to know without subsciption when the article gets published, which allows them supernatural first post with same timestamp as article.
That's sure a lot of a) freshly registered, b) subscribers, c) all clicking "No karma bonus" so their subscriber status doesn't show in postings, d) all hating Google and loving MS, e) sharing similar writing style. Or just a single puppeteer with a new sockpuppet every day. You decide!
No, it's not a strawman. The claim that the GGP made was that Google was selling people. Reductio ad Absurdem is hardly a logical fallacy in this case. Slavery is a binary operation either one is a slave or one isn't a slave and if Google is selling people and slaves are defined as people who are owned by other people then the logical conclusion is that the GGP is claiming that Google is engaging in slavery.
Now, if you take a more reasonable position than people being Google's product then it doesn't apply at all.
Don't whine to me because the original description is horribly inept and poorly considered.
Till they stop acting like Schmidt-heads. Really, this grudging half-assed crap is hardly better than the Real Name Policy, it just makes it easier policy-wise for them to make exceptions for celebrities.
A google account is not private, whereas an AppleID is. If you have to create a google account for an android phone, that means you have to have an account with some of your information made public [eg: your name]. An AppleID is private - it is used solely for billing purposes though you can expand it to include iCloud [a private-that-can-be-public service], and it can also be used for GameCenter, a public service. But by default an AppleID is private and no online profile of you is made, unlike what happens when you create a google account.
My Daily photo website.
They SHOULD allow titles. But it would make sense to appropriately tag the title apart from the name. There should be a place to enter a prefix title and a suffix title. Then in places where it is appropriate to display a name without title, it can be omitted, and where it is appropriate to display a name with title, it can be included. Searches can be matched both with and without (I know Google knows how to do that).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
You're entirely missing the point. New users of Google's services are know forced to sign up for Google+ -- and profitable or not, YouTube is one of their most popular services. The GP is trying to make the argument that by tying Google+ to other services (for some reason he used search, which is actually completely irrelevant since pretty much nobody gets a Google account in order to use their search service!) they'll drive customers to competing services. For Gmail, that's at least potentially possible. For YouTube its practically impossible, for the very reason you cited (it's not a money maker). Competitors are not going to magically spring up to rescue YouTube users from forced Google+ accounts.
There is a difference between "New Google account users forced to join Google+" and "New users tricked into joining Google+ but they can leave immediately if they want to". It's not a big difference; in a sense it's a totally stupid thing to be arguing about and you could easily have spun it for your side (try "the delete account option is hidden behind one mouse click and might be confusing to my cat"). It ends up, though, giving away the game. This is not about some people coming to tell us the news that Google has gone evil. This is about desperate people who are trying to make it seem as if Google is as evil as they are.
The thing about this is, that any serious news organisation would have contacted Google and got someone there to explain this. There explanation would have been lax; even pathetic, but it would have meant that instead of publishing a lie, you could publish a misrepresentation which could never be proven as a lie. What is with the mad rush to be evil? Even Satan knows that by holding off a bit you can get more evil for your money.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Account settings -> Delete profile and remove associated Google+ features, select "Delete your entire Google profile", check box labeled "I understand that deleting this service can't be undone and the data I delete can't be restored", press "Remove Selected Services", done. Five steps in total.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
Just let the market correct itself.
No.
No.
No.
I'm sick of hearing this idiotic philosophy. The market does not correct itself. If 1% of your faith in 'the market' were of any merit, then people would have been leaving Facebook in droves due to all the privacy gaffes they've had. Let's face it - people are stupid, nobody cares about their own privacy, and living by some stupid appeal to the majority will only make that the de facto standard.
Why is this a problem? Because if everyone uses Facebook/G+/whatever, then everybody else has to start abiding by their idiotic terms, because eventually, all the employers/social groups/universities/etc. start using these abusive services too and make it so that you have no choice. Some groups choose to conduct all their business on Facebook - to me, they might as well not exist as nothing will ever make me sign up for that piece of shit. So don't talk about letting the market correct itself - the market is pretty much always wrong, and it has terrible consequences.
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
That is bullshit. Not only is there a clearly visible skip button in the image on that story, but I just created my fourth google account (via IGoogle) and never even saw that screen.
If I go to http://www.google.com/accounts to create one, I am indeed forced to get GMail, but I can still skip the Google profile by unchecking the "personalization" checkbox on step one.
Furthermore, once you have a Google account with Gmail it is possible to delete the Gmail account while keeping the rest of the account (you must supply a non-Google email address, which will become you new sign-in email address.)
Stylish sheet to fix many problems in Slashdot's D3: https://gist.github.com/801524
Alternatly you set your age on your google account to under 18, the only thing it does is turn off google+
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Even if the market did work, it would do so by:
Telling people not to complain as the market will take care of it, basically advocates skipping the step which would make the market take care of it. It really makes no sense.