UK data watchdog 'looking into' Google+ mission creep

[raelynne]

UK data watchdog 'looking into' Google+ mission creep

Exclusive Blighty's Information Commissioner's Office is currently "looking into" Google's recent ID verification rejig, The Register has learned.

I'll be looking for the results of this with interest. The UK and European courts have been previously successful in standing up to Big IT Business, so I'm hopeful they can do it again.

Comments

[falena]

Thanks for the link!

[xenacryst]

Hrm. That article has a little blurb that I've seen elsewhere, but not seen expanded:

The company's product veep Bradley Horowitz responded to recent criticism levelled against Google's identity verification tweaks, which in the next few days will lead to the mass deletion of private profiles for the firm's products.

(emphasis mine)

This worries me. If this is what it says it is, my RL profile is going to get deleted, because I made it private - not searchable, and many of the fields locked down to viewable only by me. Does anyone know if I'm interpreting this incorrectly? I sure hope I am, because it makes no sense for Google to offer up the ability to keep one's profile private and then retaliate against that by summarily deleting all private profiles.

[shiyiya]

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/google/all-google-profiles-will-be-public-private-profiles-deleted-on-july-31st/3111

[xenacryst]

Ok, that article implies that keeping your profile out of search is not equivalent to having a private profile. That's not clear from the things I've seen Google saying (in particular http://www.google.com/support/profiles/bin/answer.py?hlrm=en&answer=1192471), but it's good to know. It means my RL profile is probably safe. I still think it's very much the wrong move and is likely to piss off a lot of people. Hell, it pisses off me, because I'd *like* to have a completely private profile. Google is doing its best to try to drive me away.

[musyc]

I would very much recommend that you back up all the information in your profile if there's anything you can't bear to lose. Everything I've seen discussed indicates that they are requiring that all profiles be searchable, at least by name, which means no completely private profiles. (So Jane Q. Privacy might not have anything displayed except name, but she still has to have her name displayed if she wants any profile at all on Google. If even that much needs to be private, no profile allowed.) I suspect there's going to be a lot of deleted profiles come August 1st, because Google hasn't been clear at all.

[shiyiya]

Yeah, I don't know. All I know is that google has done an excellent job of burning through all good opinion I had of them and are heading quite quickly for evilogue. I am not pleased about the idea of having to find replacements for all the google services I use. Ugh.

[pixel]

Ok, the confusing part is, isn't there a, separate from Google+, 'Google Profile' service? I thought there was at one point at least. I'm not finding it on Google Products either so maybe I'm wrong?

[shiyiya]

There was, I'm getting the impression this NO MORE PRIVATE! is part of merging it with +

[queenbarwench]

Yes, there is. If you click on your email address at the top right of (for instance) Gmail and then click on Account Settings, you will get to the page that summarises your account, products and profile.

I carefully wnt through all my gmail accounts last night and deleted all profile info. I feel slightly better now.

Something in comments of the original article (#7, I think) highlights that using a 'Real' name in Google+ results in this name being used in your Google Profile, which propagates across all the Google services you use. That scares me!

[xenacryst]

To reply to myself, I asked on my RL G+ stream, and someone who's actually been at Google answered and said that private profiles are NOT the equivalent of setting your G+ profile to not be searchable. Private profiles completely predate G+ and are something else. I don't know if there is currently a way to set a profile to private in such a way as to trigger the upcoming purge.

[quinfirefrorefiddle]

Hi, here from seekergeek's post.

It sounds to me like they're deleting some private profiles for rules violations, not just deleting all private profiles. Also, there's this:

Horowitz said he wanted to "debunk myths" about what some see as a downright creepy ID verification shift at Mountain View, by saying his company "aspired" to have "great solutions" for the likes of "teenagers" and "disadvantaged populations".

But such an aspiration clearly isn't good at yielding revenues, as Google's money-shy YouTube has demonstrated only too well.

He added that other Google accounts would not suffer the same suspension state as Google+, if an individual violates the firm's common name policy.

In other words, Gmail, Calendar, Blogger, etc all remain active. The one thing he failed to mention: New sign-ups to these services won't be able to do so anonymously anymore.