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Google Quietly Nixes Mandatory G+ Integration With Gmail

Posted by timothy on from the maybe-now-I'll-like-it-better dept.

An anonymous reader writes Back in 2012, Google had made it mandatory for new Gmail users to simultaneously create Google+ (G+) accounts. This is no longer so. Following the departure of G+ founder Vic Gundotra in April 2014, Google has been quietly decoupling its social media site from its other services. First, YouTube was freed, then Google+ Photos. Now, anyone who wants to create a new Gmail account unencumbered with a G+ profile can also do so.

11 of 139 comments (clear)

  1. Does it matter? by misosoup7 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Even if you had a Google+ account, if you didn't use it, what did it matter?

    1. Re:Does it matter? by spire3661 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It was an annoying insert between me and the services i want to use. I want to see my pictures on PICASA, where i put them, not integrated into G+

      --
      Good-bye
    2. Re:Does it matter? by petermgreen · · Score: 5, Informative

      Some examples

      One was the real names policy, previously youtube had been happy with psuedononymous commenters. With google+ they tried hard to push people into using their real names on google+ (though they eventually dropped that policy) and they also tried hard to push youtube users to sign up for google+ and use their google+ name (which was likely their real name) on youtube. It was possible to avoid it but they tried pretty hard to push people into it.

      Another was that gmail users were appearing in google+ searches. Some people don't want it to be easy to search out their email accounts.

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
    3. Re:Does it matter? by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Informative

      One was the real names policy, previously youtube had been happy with psuedononymous commenters. With google+ they tried hard to push people into using their real names on google+ (though they eventually dropped that policy) and they also tried hard to push youtube users to sign up for google+ and use their google+ name (which was likely their real name) on youtube. It was possible to avoid it but they tried pretty hard to push people into it.

      I never converted my pre-Google YouTube account to G+. I still am no longer able to comment on my or others' videos.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    4. Re:Does it matter? by i+kan+reed · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The reason is that "a single source for services" wasn't their plan. Their plan was "Steal users from facebook, by going absolutely nuts pushing G+".

    5. Re:Does it matter? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Cyber bullying is the reason I don't want my real name attached to everything so a bully can follow me from one website to the next.

  2. They Don't Need G+ To Track You Anymore by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    > Now, anyone who wants to create a new Gmail account unencumbered with a G+ profile can also do so.

    The main value G+ gave to google was a way to unify all of their services so that they could track you across all of them.
    But nowadays it is basically impossible to create a new account with any of google's services without giving up a phone number that they will use to "authenticate" you by sending a text or a robo-call with a number you have to type back into your browser.

    That lets google track you by phone number because, 99% of the population can't be bothered to get a new phone number for each sign-up. So it really doesn't matter that you aren't using G+ to explicitly unify your google accounts, they've figured out how to implicitly do it. So the end result is the same for them, while you get a false sense of compartmentalizing your life.

    1. Re:They Don't Need G+ To Track You Anymore by Spy+Handler · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, the main value of G+ was that Google was losing social networking to Facebook big time and Sergei Brin decided Google cannot be left behind. So they tried to leverage gmail and youtube and all their other services into forcing you to make a G+ account to give it a big boost. (Google could already track you every way to Sunday before G+ was ever dreamed up)

      The fact that they're not forcing G+ on you anymore means that after 5 years of trying, they gave up trying to beat Facebook and decided not to piss off their core users any further.

    2. Re:They Don't Need G+ To Track You Anymore by cayenne8 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's called "two factor authentication" and it's only mandatory if you care about security.

      Well, if it is a matter of 2 factor and giving my phone number to Google vs less secure and keeping my phone numbers to myself, I'm afraid I have to err on the side of less secure, sadly.

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  3. Good move... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Thank god... This was a TOP google annoyance. You had to be careful when signing up for the forced Google+ that you didn't inadvertently leave your permissions for sharing, +1's etc wide open to the public.

    Not everyone wants every video they've marked to watch later tied back to their email address, tied back to their name on a public profile!

    I never really understood it, it was so anti-customer and I actually reduced my usage of Google+ because of it. Google+'s initial appeal for me was what I felt like a more controlled sharing circles world. But then everything (Picasa web albums and photos, youtube activity) started to link into the profile. UGH! I've never posted a Google+ update since, even though I liked the way they handled photo's.

  4. Stop bundling. by ledow · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I have a social networking account already, thanks.
    I have an email account already, thanks
    I have a cloud storage account already, thanks.
    I have a search engine already, thanks.
    I have an instant messenger already, thanks.

    When you try to do EVERYTHING, you believe that all your customers will drop everything they have years invested in and run to you. Doesn't work out that way. And if you get over-precious and try to force them to do it, well, that doesn't go down well either.

    So run them as separate, independent services that I *can* join together if I want to (it's handy to be able to sign into Google Drive with my old GMail account, for example, but don't FORCE that upon me).

    In the same way that if you sell me TV, phone, Internet, water, gas, electricity, burglar alarm and music lessons - and then try to "punish" me for not using one of them, or force me to use one in order to get another - chances are that I won't use any of them. Whereas if you just ran them all as separate services, I might well decide to lump in TV, phone and Internet into a single package for convenience. But you have to think about what happens when I'm perfectly happy with my Internet provider and DO NOT want to change. If your offerings are that inflexible that you won't let me use one without the others - even if the others are useless to me - then I'm likely to find yet-another-company that will do, say, my email without requiring me to sign up to their social network too.

    This is exactly how I viewed things. I was one of the first GMail accounts, back when they were invite-only and nobody knew they existed. It took over from my Hotmail (primarily because my Hotmail account was trying to tie into my Windows Live account, and into my Microsoft account, etc. etc. etc.). And when G+ came along, I looked and deliberately decided against it. The more the pushed, to more I ignored.

    It never got to the point where it became a hassle to opt-out, even when it did become annoying, so I'm still on GMail but not G+. Hence, it's not a shock to me that probably a lot of other people did exactly the same.

    Just because you offer "your" Facebook, doesn't mean I'll immediately move everything off my Facebook to change to you. No matter how good you are.