Google Deleting Private Profiles 312
An anonymous reader writes "Google announced that it will no longer support private Google Profiles after July 31. The move comes as Google is rolling out its latest social experiment, Google+. Those who have already been admitted to Google+ will see their Google+ profiles replace their Google Profiles. At the moment the only information Google requires users to reveal is their name and gender."
Re:Consciously opt out? (Score:5, Informative)
How do I opt out of Google+?
https://plus.google.com/u/0/downgrade/ [google.com]
Re:Webmail alternative? (Score:2, Informative)
somewhat OT, but can anyone recommend a good webmail provider whose business is not selling and analyzing our private communication, but providing a good webmail client? I don't mind paying, my privacy is worth it.
Google does not sell information and only lets programs(never people) analyse your messages (acc to Google's p.p. )
i believe the advertising analyzes is disabled on non-free corp accounts
and btw any anti spam filter analyzes your messages and any mail provider can read your mail
if you want privacy, then build your own (fire-)wall and setup a mail server behind this.
Re:Google+ (Score:3, Informative)
If your Google profile was ALREADY public, that's true. If your Google profile was private (as you would expect from those who care about privacy issues) your are prompted and asked if you want it to become public in order to join Google+. If by the end of this month you do not make it public it will just be deleted, not automatically disclosed. The only mandatory information in the public profile is name and age.
Re:Paranoia much? (Score:5, Informative)
It's as bad as people saying they don't want to use Facebook because, gasp, "they" will learn about you. I worked as a marketing database analyst - they have known about you for years. For pennies I could buy demographic data (per household) for my metro area telling me if someone was likely to own pets, what type of money they made, what their job was, their ethnic background and other mundane details. If people are really concerned about their privacy, as much as they claim here, I wonder how they even get to Slashdot. How did they sign up for Internet service - if stolen, how did they get their PCs? Did they ever do anything that could have been sent up to companies like Experian? Because if so - "they" already know.
And really - "they" don't care. Then just want you to buy more tanning visits.
Re:Removing private account info? (Score:4, Informative)
I got an invite into Google+, was on for a very short time (around 10 minutes I would guess), in which I already had several people "pre-add" me to their lists - for a brand new account (so how exactly have these relationships been formed, or is this some Buzz "feature" where certain people are automatically just linked to my Google+ account?)
It's probably worth pointing out that somebody "adding you" in Google+ is not the same as in Facebook or Twitter. Adding somebody to one of your circles in Google+ means you can post stuff TOWARDS them but it does not mean you can see anything of theirs other than their public profile. It's one way only unless they add you to their circle too and even then something you post to a circle I am in won't appear on my default stream. It appears on my incoming stream and I can then choose whether to include things from your circle in my default stream. Also with every post you can choose who (in terms of circles or individuals) gets to see it or not.
It's not perfect and could possibly still be open to abuse by marketeers but they seem to have made a better stab at it that Facebook
Re:What is a "Google Profile"? (Score:3, Informative)