Slashdot Mirror
The Phantoms of Google+
theodp writes "Engadget reports that Google wants a patent on its System and Method for Generating a Ghost Profile for a Social Network. The brainchild of five Googlers, the invention is designed to convert anti-social-networking types to the joys of Google+ and its ilk. From the patent: 'A problem arises when users of social networks are friends with people that are opposed to social networks. The second group misses out on an important social component. For example, many users only share their photos on a social networking site. As a result, users that do not want to join the social network are forced to either join with reservations or miss out on the social component, such as viewing pictures.' By generating an unsearchable 'ghost profile' when a member of the social network invites a Google+ adverse friend to join, Google explains, non-believers get to participate in social networking activities without providing user information."
Sounds like a grab to boost G+'s userbase beyond Wil Wheaton and Google engineers.
Not gonna touch Google+ until they get rid of their "real names" policy and I'm not inclined since I've invested so much of my online social life with Facebook.
Simple as that.
I'm not joining. You won't monetize or profile me. If that means I quit sharing certain things with social junkies, then so be it.
I'm not your datapoint and I never will be.
Remind me again why I want to participate in social networking?
This is the biggest / most ridiculous case of "because it's there" in the history of our species.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
This will be HUGE! We all already knew that G+ was a ghost town. Suddenly, G+ will have TONS of active ghost members.
Didn't get enough people at the party? Code them into the system instead. Oh, and patent it.
Did google just put a patented on getting around the real-name policy?
I don't miss out on anything, thank you very much.
Yes, force people who do NOT want to be social to be social, that is a great way to get product support.
Stupid fucking gits.
If that shit worked, I'd be religious.
Be seeing you...
As soon as the marketers get bored of abusing G+ for SEO purposes, it's going to die a quick death.
Other than the RSS feed posts, it's dead air anyway.
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
Its part of the urge to centralise.
When we are presented with more distributed services such as email, setting up your own wordpress installation, or IRC server, everyone gives there entire online existence to google, twitter & facebook.
This is better because we are putting more, bigger eggs in the worlds largest basket, which doesn't have keep eggs safe on its agenda
Claim 1: the social network of Fig. 1 whereby 'Facebook' is now 'Google+'.
Rejected: obviousness
Claim 2: the social photography network of Fig. 2 whereby 'Facebook' is now 'Google+".
Rejected: obviousness
Claim 3: the ghost profile of Fig. 3 whereby social misfits refuse to join Google+.
Rejected: because it's evil.
... has done just an excellent job in separating out, among all my friends and acquaintances, those who want me to spend my life looking at their photographs or mouse-clicking through Zynga games. And it largely segregates them.
Works for me.
I've been on G+ since it was incepted when the damn Meme about a real name started. Guess what. Google has never required a Real Name for it as long as you have a valid Log-In for their services. Those who only used GDocs/Gmail were fine. Even iGoogle (start page), Picasa or Google Groups worked if you had a log-in. The only service that has ever required a Real Name was Orkut due Brazil and the South American Problems. For EU/US/Asia, Orkut has been a non-starter as it's never been pushed for us to use it due to Picasa.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
Smells again like the "single click" patent... However this is "grandparents" problem. I enjoy easy (lazy) Picassa album management but have parents that are not fb/g+/etc users and who want to look at pictures and rarely at my posts and never post anything... The "every person with link" distribution is good enough if I could create a group of "outsiders with emails"...
4wdloop
but despite all google + is still a very useful tool for webmasters ...
Is somewhat a need, a lot of people could be already creating alternate profiles to not "pollute" their main ones.
The main problem i have with it is... well, a lot are already doing it (manually, without any ties to their main profile), so doesnt it count as prior art? Even slashdot's anonymous coward (and posting at it even if logged) could count as that. Well, that, and that you even having one of such ghost profiles, you are more easily traceable that having an alternate fake account.
So it creates ghost profiles for everyone not on Google+. So everyone in the world not employed by google? Wow I'm impressed.
As a result, users that do not want to join the social network are forced to either join with reservations or miss out on the social component, such as viewing pictures.
Why should anyone have to join a social network to view a friend's pictures? The only way this "problem" can exist is when the owners of the social network try to force artificial restrictions on the network.
If I post anything on Facebook - text, pictures, whatever - I can flag it as public, or I can limit access to some arbitrary group. If I want to share photos with someone who's not on Facebook, I will just mark them "public" (in practice, I tend to post my photos elsewhere; but that's beside the point). I can't imagine Google+ doesn't allow this as well - so either their network is artificially restricted in an attempt to force people into some affiliation, or else they are being disingenuous in this patent defense.
#DeleteChrome
I have a G+ profile, but I don't post that much there.
If they'd just let me stick the RSS feeds from my blogs there, the profile just might be a little bit more useful, you know? Simple and effective. (Perhaps even integrate to Google Reader somehow. Let people see what I post. Let people see what I liked.)
Wait, such a brilliantly obvious idea is not patentable and Facebook already bought FriendFeed. *sigh*
Isn't this what normally a typical secret or regular police would do? Build a file on you?
Seriously, Google. Who wants to live in this kind of world?
Are they patenting this to stop it?
I read 'ghost profile' as a dummy login which cannot be traced to me on other services or in meatspace. As far as I can tell, that's been going on in numerous services for many years (so good luck with the prior art part of this). In some cases, setting up such dummy accounts requires establishing your alternate self (via the likes of throw away e-mail accounts) in a few other places. Given Google's preference for the use of real names, patenting this activity could be the first step in shutting it down on other sites, leaving users with nothing but their real selves exposed on various sites.
Have gnu, will travel.
A patent to create a file? With Dummy Data in it? I think the industry may have one or two examples floating around Google for that.
Sure the terms of service specifically state that you must use your real name in your G+ profile and there is documented evidence of Google shutting down G+ accounts due to fake names, and Google has stated in public that they will start allowing pseudonyms but only if they are already well-established. But I managed to use a fake name without getting caught so it must all be a bunch of blogosphere hype.
Here's a really quick method of losing me as a friend:
1 Upload a picture of me to one of the world's most privacy infringing companies (Google or Facebook).
2 "Tag" me so the system knows which pixels are my face.
3 Associate it with my email address.
If you want to screw your own privacy by uploading stuff you'll regret in 20 years then be my guest but don't drag me into it. That's not cool.
/me checks the date
Sunday April 01, @02:58AM
Yeah, it's already begun.
...
A problem arises when users of social networks are friends with people that are opposed to social networks. The second group misses out on an important social component. [emphasis mine]
Asserting that there is "a problem" or that non-members are "missing out" assumes your reference frame is the preferred -- and that's the real problem. In addition, while I'll agree that Facebook/Google+ may offer some sort of "social component", their importance is questionable. More to the point, I'd argue that they distract from real, live, more personal social interactions. Lastly, I find patent quote to be a little condescending to us "non-believers".
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
it's called a Facebook account. Wake up, Google!
there's no place like ~
Ghost users will solve the problem of unregistered users not being able to participate ... because G+ doesn't let unregistered users participate? Seems to me they had the same problem with Google Docs -- unregistered users couldn't see or edit a spreadsheet -- but they resolved that by making 'sharing' options.
This codifies the fact that Google (and Facebook, et al.) create a "profile" for every visit to their websites/services, and they don't know the names to go with those profiles.
tomorrow who's gonna fuss
Because Social Networking is the pinnicle of human existence. There's really no other reason to exsist, and non-believers must be dragged, kicking and screaming if needed, into the fold.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
users of social networks are friends with people that are opposed to social networks. The second group misses out on an important social component.
Time to delete my G+ profile. Seriously, how fucked up is this kind of thinking?
People who are ignorant of social networks may be "missing out" on something.
People who are opposed to social networks are not "missing out", they have opted out. They know what they are missing and have decided that they are better off without.
This is such a fucked-up mindset they are displaying, I don't even know any appropriate english words. It's just hostile to treat people who have intentionally decided against your product as if they were ignorant stupid little children who need to be helped along.
No, they don't. Maybe you think your product is the best thing since sliced bread, but that doesn't mean you are right nor that everyone who disagrees is an idiot.
Now excuse me, I need to find the "delete my profile and all its data" on Google Plus. Any bets that it will be either missing or carefully hidden?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Its seriously gotten so bad that I pretty much either A) tackle the idiot or B) run for the hills every time I see a camera.
Allow the the social networker to generate URL to the photo that is accessible without a login.
I'm not going to patent this "invention." Feel free to use it.
I've often wondered how accurate of a fingerprint your selection of friends on a social network is. The reason I find this important is that I, like many people wish that I hadn't used my real name on any of my social networks. If I had been smart, I would have made an alias to at least make it slightly more difficult for the social network to pinpoint my real world identity.
But the damage is basically done, and this leads me to the reason I asked the question: knowing I can create a fake account through Tor, how many of my friends can I re-friend before the social network invisibly links my old and new account behind the scenes?
WTF is this all about?
The Mormons declare prior art. They've been baptizing ghosts into their "social network" for years.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
If i choose to use a handle and not input my real name 'Jhon Smith' e.g. flipper@gmail.com...
Then I send this address to my friends, who in turn put my name beside the address in their contacts page. it defeats the goal of ever using a handle.
If 2 or more friends who use gmail to flag my real name, then google, have my IP/login times/cookies and name (and a host of other unique identifiers)
but they don't know what i look like, my age, interests for sure, they can only guess if I choose not to join facebook or g+ or volunteer this info.
but once agains, google can use my friends can rat me out, by creating a 'ghost profile' for collecting the scraps of info that active users share about me, combined with the existing identifiable information I already have shared, google (or whoever) can build a full profile of me over time.
This profile is intended for market profiling etc. but should google fall on harder times and need to sell their assets, their most valuable asset is easily the info collected on each and every one of us.
It's the same for facebook, bing, dropbox and every other service on the net that offers something for nothing.
this shit is becoming unavoidable on the modern internet and after nearly 20 years online I'm increasingly tempted to pull the plug.
I think I missed the part where centralized data-scraping services have to be used in order to share pictures with your friends.
Could someone go over that part again?
Because I'm pretty sure I was doing that on the internet before Facebook and G+ came along, and it was working just fine.
Captcha: "oppose"
I take it a step further. My real friends have my phone number, not my e-mail address. Why? I would prefer they call or text me, and we get together and do things IN REAL LIFE, not via fakelife, that is, in "cyberspace". HOWEVER, as for your idea that your conversations that are CC'ed to all your groupfriends, unless you're using some serious industrial/military strength encryption, the government and private companies ARE still potentially reading it. You haven't prevented them by using e-mail, you've just made it not worth their while. That's all.
The downside to my approach, I've just realized, is if you have friends who turn out to be borderline alcoholics... everything you do with them ultimately involves 1, alcohol, and 2, sharing of things that should remain personal and confidential... OMG, I have a real-life social network, complete with data breaches and EVERYTHING!!! AAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!
Maybe I should just get a fb/gp account after all.
On a side note, in response to Overzeetop's comment, hey, not everyone who refuses to embrace every idiotic fad is a Luddite. Some of us are simply people with discriminating tastes, who don't jump on every bandwagon full of idiots that comes rolling down the street. As a matter of fact, I don't need to see every boring, poorly composed photo you've taken. I don't need to know the specifics of your dad's colonoscopy. There are things that should be kept to the self because others don't want to know, don't need to know, or simply shouldn't know. This tendency toward sharing everything may sound like a good idea, but imagine if it were involuntary, if there were no filter. Imagine a Google Streetview/The "Real" World crew followed you around, and you could NOT shut them out. Imagine if you had NO choice but to let these guys into every intimate corner of your life. They watch you eat, drink, work, sleep, shit, piss, fuck, etc., etc., etc.
Not so different from what you have now with these "social networks", is it? You figure it's okay, if you're a SN user, because YOU control (or so you think) what goes on the net, when, and how much. But suppose you miscalculate? Suppose someone miscalculates for you? (Remember that guy who just got convicted of a hate/bias crime for posting pics or a vid or whatever, of his queer roommate's screwing another dude online?) How is life really improved by this? We developed a sense of the value of privacy for a reason. It goes hand in hand with freedom, whether or not it's enshrined in law. Other people simply do not have a need to know every little detail. They shouldn't want to know it. When it's my life, they (and you) don't GET to know it. It's part of why I stopped using my /. profile (yes, I have one) to post. If you're relying on my "karma" to determine whether or not the content of my posts adds to the conversation, you're not truly evaluating the truth and value of my words. It's the most ridiculous fallacious appeal to authority I've ever seen. It's like listening to the political opinions of actors and athletes. People assume because they're famous, they must be important, and so worth listening to. People who get paid to play for a living, play make believe, or play games... it's really sad.
"The second group misses out on an important social component."
Fuck you, asshole. You don't get to define what I consider an "important" social component.
Joking and April's fools aside, this is something that FriendFeed has had since something like day 1, centuries before being bought up by Facebook: you could define "virtual friends" which, given the feed-based nature of FF as a social network, was just a collection of feeds.
"I'm never quite so stupid as when I'm being smart" (Linus van Pelt)
Actually, I avoid Google+ to avoid the people who use tired "cyber-phrases" like "meatspace" and rabid Google fanbois (I apologize if that's being redundant) who will sacrifice (and then try to sanctimoniously justify that sacrifice) their privacy for the latest Shiny.
As is par for slashdot, the summary contradicts the article -- "the invention is designed to convert anti-social-networking types to the joys of Google+" says the summary, whereas the patent abstract says "The ghost profile allows a user to use certain features in a social network without converting to a social network profile. "
In other words, the patent is for just the opposite of what the summary says it is for.
(Disclaimer: I work for Google. It's a big company; I had nothing to do with this patent.)
This was actually a feature of Facebook for a while, at least when I joined up. The number one driver for me to create an account on facebook was that I already had a sort of ghost account created by the people I knew. Even though I didn't have an account, people could still tag me in photos (prompting an email), view collections of photos that I'd been tagged in, and a few other basic functions. I joined solely so that I could change my privacy settings.
Single must fucking insightful comment in this article.
But... the future refused to change.
Actually, I avoid Google+ to avoid the people who use tired "cyber-phrases" like "meatspace" and rabid Google fanbois (I apologize if that's being redundant) who will sacrifice (and then try to sanctimoniously justify that sacrifice) their privacy for the latest Shiny.
.... and you came to slashdot?!
That is the best idea ever for them considering those users would still see ads. It opens up a ridiculously huge number of potential ad viewers that facebook can't even touch. Of course it'd be less directed and they're not making commissions on stupid aps necessarily but still.
a basket that doesn't protect eggs is useful how?
N/T
this signature has been removed due to a DMCA takedown notice
It is April Fools tomorrow after all!
Well, someone has to remind you dipshits how asstasstic facebook and google- are, it might as well be him.
But there is no -1 moron.
Thus no patent.
Do you use your real name on Facebook?
Yes I do! So do all my friends...except for one or two. So?
One thing that non-clueless people who've actually been paying attention have noticed is that there's a lot of people on FB who DO NOT choose to use their real name. Not all, or even most of them are paranoid Ted Kaczynski types hiding out in log cabins. I've noticed a lot of young black men especially tend to change their FB name to something creative or different.
It's just another form of self expression. Why the fuck would you prevent your users from expressing themselves?
Ooh, ooh! I know this one. Because Google would have a slightly diminished capacity to track every single of its users' every move, know every single thing there is to know about that person, and sell that information at great profit for its own benefit!
So to avoid a 2% negative hit, they turn away 20% of their potential users. Real brilliant strategy you got there Google.
How do you know when a company is evil? One big sign is when it starts ignoring its customers and pressing ahead with what it wants, regardless of what its customers desire. Doesn't that description fit Google pretty aptly?
I mean, just read the description in the summary. I just love how they word things. You can just tell that these propellerheads are all totally convinced that Google+ is the best fucking thing ever. In their minds, G+ makes whoever invented sliced bread or the wheel look like a fucking chump next to their glorious creation. Listen to how goddamned concerned they are about how the "non-believers" and "anti-social-networking types" might be "missing out" on the "joys" of their platform! Oh my. Why the hell won't they just use our service, damnit? Why, if only we could grab hold of these stupid ignorant pricks and bolt them down in chairs, and make the stubborn fuckers see just how amazing our shit is! They would emerge into the world amazed, squinting at the sudden brightness and warmth of the sun, minds still reeling in incredulity from the wonders just experienced!
I'm telling you--this company is fucking evil. Yes, stupidity is evil, when it's attached to as much power as Google possesses!
Yeah...too bad you don't like having a profile so you're gonna get one anyway. You're gonna take it and you're going to like it.
It allowed my sister to create a ghost profile for me. I saw it on my wife's facebook session.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I don't own/use a mobile phone
So how do you call for help in case of car trouble, bike trouble, or bus trouble? There used to be pay phones until prepaid cell phones became popular.
Until not being a member of a social site brands you as anti-social and a problem person.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Lets say you oppose social networks and you currently don't have a profile on G+. Along comes 'ghost profile' and if its not currently intended for the purpose I will describe, you can bet it soon will be.
A friend has you in a photo they post in G+, they identify you in the photo against a ghost profile. No doubt the photo is annotated in some way which would contain other information (where, date, with whomb).
Another friend does the same, binds some photo, link, video, audio to this ghost profile.
Over time your friends, acquaintances, colleges, anyone on the social network, is building your profile. Even if you want nothing to do with social networks, you have a 'ghost profile' and its being updated every day!
Scary stuff!!!
I realized long ago that this was a losing battle, and I don't have the chops to quadra-encode stuff through darknet-layered Triple Encrpyted Forked-TOR routers etc.
So the best I could do was not sign up for either Facebook or G+, accept that Mom has posted about 5 pics of me on her page of Facebook, and this handle is my Universal Web Brand that anyone with smarts can figure out in an hour. But I have five emails, 1 to segregate "opted in Business semi-spam", my one for this identity, my family one, and two more for obscure uses.
So one day if people did a look-up on my real name they'd get a few Resume-Sanitized results, but not a lot more. My tone for my "Web Brand" is some 95% PG13, so yes, with exhaustive work you MIGHT catch me getting fiery, but it took you $1000 of analysis labor to find it. I run some Adult recreation under further separated handles.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Ironically, isn't social media for anti-socials?
I had a threesome last night with two hot girls and then called my mother later today to wish her a happy birthday.
Tonight I am having drinks with real friends.
Certainly, I must be missing out if I'm not on F/G+. I must not have a social life.
Social Media is for people who are missing out. That's the whole point.
I have found Google+ better than Facebook. Having done it and left it with no interest in allowing it to suck up a substantive portion of my life, with fewer people using it, I am far less likely to unknowingly create offence.
Facebook was way to intrusive, tricking the less technically aware into feeding it with interaction that drew in other users and then setting those people into taking offence when people didn't respond. Unknowingly with Facebook I had offended quite a few people, simply because I had no real interest in Facebook, ever checked in, never really wanted to but the psychologically targeted design manipulated them into getting as many interactions going as possible and taking offence when they were not responded too.
I loathed Facebook, when through all the rigmarole to completely delete my largely inactive account and routinely recommend every to avoid like the plague. From that point of view have a more active ghost profile in conjunction with your largely static distant and indifferent polished personal profile makes sense.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Congratulations! You passed the entrance exam for antisocial people! Unfortunately, you have now been flagged by the big social networks. Your IP address has been recorded by Facebook, and a black courtesy minivan has been dispatched to your home, containing several temporary login passwords and a friendly gymnastics instructor. Do not invite him in for tea!
So, does this mean that g***** will not record the IP, link refe(r)rer, used operating system and browser, JavaScript on/off status, flash plugin status, cookies, resolution used, installed fonts, the time of requests and location of files and 500 other details?
Sure. *wink wink*
Does anyone remember when human beings used to have actual contact with each other, rather than having to have all kind of social interaction shunted through evil multinational corporations?
If friends can't be bothered to make *actual* contact with me, and insist that all interaction has to take place through sites like facebook, then they're not really friends.
Google has never required a Real Name for it as long as you have a valid Log-In for their services.
This is false. I signed up with a nickname that all my friends use for me. I previously had gmail and picasa. G+ worked for about a month or two and then popped the message "your account is suspended due to the name policy" on login. Giving the option to give my real name and ask for review, or revert to how it was before (more or less, no G+, disable comments in picasa and some other social related stuff).
1. Stop deleting peoples' accounts when you suspect that the name they are using is not their legal name.
2. There is no step 2.
obscure uses == fetish porn