Google Quietly Nixes Mandatory G+ Integration With Gmail 139
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.
Does it matter? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
^ Part of the problem ^
Re: (Score:2)
^ more interested in being smug than being part of the solution ^
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Re: (Score:2)
but there's always someone wanting to foist a solution...
and that can be a problem...
OK, wait a sec...
Re: (Score:3)
Exactly.
The vast majority of google+ accounts are probably empty shells created so youtube would stop prompting, which kinda makes the service look like a barren wasteland.
Re: (Score:3)
Makes you wonder if they notice Google+ accounts named "Fuck off, no means no!"
Re:Does it matter? (Score:5, Insightful)
What do they mean YouTube Freed? (Score:4, Informative)
???
I had an account on there from before YT was purchased by Google. Since the G+ requirement, which I resisted...I've not been able to comment on other videos, not even reply to comments on MY videos because it keeps popping up saying I need to associate it with a G+ account in order to post comments to YouTube.
I've not seen a change there. Is there a secret Mickey Mouse handshake one needs to know to fix this? I miss replying to people commenting on videos I post.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't know about if you've never had a Google+ profile, but I deleted mine earlier today and can still comment on my own videos... haven't tried replying to someone else, though.
Re: (Score:2)
How do you delete your google+ profile?!?!?!
Re: (Score:2)
I had to search every area of my Google+ profile's accounts section until I finally ran across the button to do so. I don't think their help pages even tell you the correct location for it, and now that my profile is deleted, I can't go back and tell where it was (it just prompts me to create a Google+ Profile when I do).
Re:What do they mean YouTube Freed? (Score:4, Informative)
Top left corner, Profile->Settings, scroll all the way down and find: Disable Google+
Ah, the smell of freedom from that useless putrid thing!
Re: (Score:2)
Try this (at your own risk of course): https://plus.google.com/downgrade/ [google.com]
You may have to login.
Read everything carefully - there appears to be no Undo and Goggle+'s spiky tentacles can reach far and wide in the Google environs.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, found it.
Now comments won't load on youtube. Not that that's a huge loss, but...
Re: (Score:1)
I just tried it and you still cannot send photo in hangout without G+
I am not on G+ and never will be. Consequently I do not hang out in hangouts either
Re:Does it matter? (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.
Re:Does it matter? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not sure if I follow the real name policy argument. Personally, I understand that people want privacy and there was a huge outcry when Blizzard also required real names as part of their RealID row out. But at the same time I think the issue that both Blizzard and Google wanted to address was cyber-bullying by hiding behind the anonymity of the internet. I think everyone else just got caught in the crossfire because of a few bad actors. In all seriousness, neither Google nor Blizzard really benefits by having your real name. It's not like the earn money by knowing your name, they earn money by knowing your interests. Your name just doesn't give them that. And for them to require real names, there must be something else there. But then again that's just my 2 cents, take what you will.
Gaining new users' trust (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yet another reason not to be on Facebook.
Re:Does it matter? (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally the issue wasn't that Google knew my name (I'm sure they know a lot more than that) but that they made that information available to everyone who cared to look.
That left a bad taste in my mouth and I have since refused to touch G+ because of it, even though they did back out from that particular stance quite quickly.
Re: (Score:2)
Your name was only searchable if you made your profile public, which was not the default. The exception is that people you had already emailed yourself get offered to connect with you by default as they are considered to have some kind of relationship to you.
Re:Does it matter? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
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.
Yep. I could see having a real-name-hidden-always policy (with no option to reveal, and a complete inverse of Facebook's policies of refusing to respect your desire for privacy & silent changes so you are better of sharing as little info with them as possible) for when somebody says that they think they have a bully doing that, simply so there's a chance to confirm it is the same person. (And if it's not clearly a name, you're still down a bully.)
IANAL, but following somebody 'from one website to the
Re: (Score:2)
IANAL, but following somebody 'from one website to the next' sounds like it crosses the line from cyber bullying into stalking.
What are you gonna do, sue them? You have thousands of dollars sitting around to give to an attorney as a retainer so you can sue some guy on the internet?
Re: (Score:1)
IANAL, but following somebody 'from one website to the next' sounds like it crosses the line from cyber bullying into stalking.
What are you gonna do, sue them? You have thousands of dollars sitting around to give to an attorney as a retainer so you can sue some guy on the internet?
There is thing thing called cyberstalking legislation. [wikipedia.org] I may not be a lawyer, but I do make some effort to know what isn't legal.
I also was looking at it from the perspective of owning the site, or at least being legally responsible for it. It seems only one of the places explicitly protects you from liability, which suggests that it would be possible to sue the service itself for its role. Being able to say that the moment the victim complained to you, you checked your records and with the other site(s)
Re: (Score:2)
In my case, Slashdot is one of the few places that I use my real name. (Mainly because I set up my Slashdot account a LONG time ago, can't change the username, and don't want to ditch this account in favor of a new one.) Everywhere else, I use the same pseudonym. It's partly a brand thing (easier than "Jason Levine" which is very generic) and part of it is keeping semi-anonymous. (I've run into cyber-stalkers and the fact that the person couldn't immediately tell where I really lived and what my employe
Re: (Score:2)
Not sure if I follow the real name policy argument. Personally, I understand that people want privacy and there was a huge outcry when Blizzard also required real names as part of their RealID row out. But at the same time I think the issue that both Blizzard and Google wanted to address was cyber-bullying by hiding behind the anonymity of the internet.
You can tell people at a company are speaking from a place of privilege when they assert that using real names will reduce bullying/make people safer/etc. For many of us, using real names pretty much guarantees bullying and danger, and quite possibly even threatens our lives. From Blizzard, it really takes the cake. Like I'm going to put my life in jeopardy for the sake of a video game. And even if the threats aren't serious, many people would just rather avoid the hate and abuse to begin with, even if
Re:Does it matter? (Score:5, Informative)
I never converted my pre-Google YouTube account to G+. I still am no longer able to comment on my or others' videos.
Re: (Score:3)
Mod Parent up. This is true. Google still force you to agree to "Google+ Pages" Terms of Service in order to have a pseudonymic voice on YouTube.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, I just tried to comment on a friends' video...it had me sign in, which I did, but then started saying this name would be on a new G+ site on my channel, etc.
So, G+ isn't gone for good, it still is quite an intrusive requirement if you want to post on YouTube currently.
Re: (Score:2)
Strange. I've been able to keep my old YT account separate, though it used to keep asking to "switch" over to my G+ profile. Try logging out of every Google account you have, then log in to YT. May or may not work. it's hard to tell with Google's strange account settings.
Re: (Score:2)
I've kept the YT account separate too all these years, however....I cannot comment from it.
I can post videos, do channel work, etc...but I cannot seem to comment on my videos or others' unless I covert it to a G+ account.
Re: (Score:3)
I fail to understand how they don't just have a Google account and then you go into some kind of 'setup' or 'preferences' panel and check/uncheck boxes for 'enable: Picassa, YouTube, GMail, Plus, Reader (oops), Wallet', etc. If that's too complex it can be automatically enabled if you go to the relevant service and try to use it (upload a picture, post an update, etc.).
I don't believe that Google is irrational, but by making their services as hard to use as possible (I know, don't read the YouTube commment
Re:Does it matter? (Score:5, 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+".
Re: (Score:2)
TFTFY.
Seriously, Google was very late to the party, screwed up their implementation, screwed up the launch, and was desperate to make it look like G+ was *huge* and growing exponentially. Pretty much their only even remotely legitimate option was to
Re: (Score:2)
It's because it adds more value to your profile, which is the source of Google's revenue.
Google would like to create its own ecosystem where you use only Google's web applications, an Internet à la Google, where they track every little action that you do.
Also, since you "subscribe" to all of their services, they can claim that their services are used by millions of people.
Re: (Score:2)
I didn't know why they couldn't keep their real name policy but modify it so that you supplied them with a real name and then entered a pseudonym that the world would see. So Google might know that I'm "Jason Levine", but everyone else would see my posts/comments/etc as coming from "UserX". You could make this a Google-services-wide default with some application-level exceptions. (For example, you might want your e-mails to display a different name.)
Insisting on "give us a real name that we'll show to th
Re: (Score:3)
Because you're not their user, you're their product. The idea wasn't to be comfortable for you, the idea was to get as much information out of you as possible. What they did was basically a rip-off of the MS tactics: Use their most powerful, most successful product to muscle into another market they were late for, that was already taken by someone else and that they wanted. What Windows was for MS in their attempt to wedge into the browser business, YouTube was for Google in their attempt to squeeze themsel
Re: (Score:2)
Well, there was the whole real name policy. And not giving a damn about G+.
It was getting to the point that almost everything you did on any Google service was getting the nag messages of "hey, wanna use this thing?"
In all honesty, I have no real idea of what G+ was, is, or WTF I'd want it for. I just know I've spent the last few years having to say "no, I don't care" to avoid having it foisted on me.
On Android, Google has been steadily making it harder and harder to avoid ... and in a few cases when tryi
Re: (Score:2)
On Android, Google has been steadily making it harder and harder to avoid ... and in a few cases when trying to log into my gmail account from a web browser, I'm confronted with authenticating with YouTube. I'm not using YouTube, I'm using gmail. Leave YouTube out of this.
Yep, I've been noticing that too. If you have a stock Android phone (as 99.9% of users do, figure freely pulled out of my ass) then you pretty much need to sign up for Google Everything in order to use any of it. Even if you specifically avoid the endless prompts to hand your soul to Google on initialisation, you quickly find that nothing much works (you can't install apps, can't get mail, etc) unless you let Google into your life, and then a week later you're off taking a dump and your phone bongs and it's
Re: (Score:2)
That's probably the reason just why they disconnected them. Consider for a moment how you felt if you were looking around a social network only to notice that every profile you hit is empty. Would you want to stay?
Re: (Score:2)
Thank god they stopped the bundling of services I do not want. Especially more spyware.
Re: (Score:2)
No one seems to be foaming at the mouth about the ubiquitous "sign on with Facebook" feature many sites have which FORCE you to have a Facebook account in order to use their service.
That would be because people can live without the ability to comment on those sites. It's harder (not impossible, but harder) to live without the ability to comment on Google-owned sites.
Re: (Score:2)
No one seems to be foaming at the mouth about the ubiquitous "sign on with Facebook" feature many sites have which FORCE you to have a Facebook account in order to use their service.
That would be because people can live without the ability to comment on those sites. It's harder (not impossible, but harder) to live without the ability to comment on Google-owned sites.
A bunch of sites are requiring you to have a Facebook account to take advantage of their services. You dismiss it by saying those sites aren't important anyway? Regarding commenting on Google sites, they use a unified comment engine tied to your Google Account. None of those comments have to be pushed to G+...it's voluntary. You aren't forced to do it - whereas, you are being FORCED to signup with Facebook. Again, pure and simple this is just FUD.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm saying I've seen such sites, and NOT ONE of them has been sufficiently compelling that I said "gee I'll go sign up for Facebook so I can comment here". I have a Disqus account. I'm willing to make single-serving accounts. If one of those two doesn't cover the situation, then tough shit, I don't need to participate in your site.
Re: (Score:2)
The main difference for me is maybe that I don't want to use anything coming out of the Facebook corner of the planet and hence I have no beef with them. If a page insists in only allowing me in if I have a Facebook account, it's usually trivial for me to simply do without said page.
It's kinda different with Google. Google offers a fair lot of services, some of them even very useful. And them constantly trying to shove some useless services of theirs up my rear is kinda annoying when all I want to do is use
Re: (Score:2)
So they have to do without my business. Just like I refused to accept Google's attempt to cram their shit down my throat so I could use the services I wanted to use. It's annoying, but in the end I and only I decide whether or not I accept your terms of business. You cannot force me.
They Don't Need G+ To Track You Anymore (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.
Re: (Score:2)
It's called "two factor authentication" and it's only mandatory if you care about security.
Re: (Score:1)
AC is referring to something else, 'dog.
http://i.imgur.com/qaXrjDn.png
Re: (Score:2)
something else, but not unrelated. Even if you don't use 2-factor auth, giving a phone number is a 2nd way of communications for restoring your password. And it is not connected to a 2nd maila ccount that may also be compromised.
Re:They Don't Need G+ To Track You Anymore (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
No...I don't own an android phone.
Re: (Score:1)
Google, it seems, is convinced my phone is being used somewhere in Brazil going by the version of their site they keep redirecting me to. Apparently I moved from Florida to Mexico to there? Except I've never been any of those places.
Just because they have my IP doesn't mean it does much.
Re: (Score:2)
It's annoying to be reminded each month to set this up. I do not want to use my phone for this. I will never answer it from an unknown caller, and texting is blocked, so it's useless for this purpose. If someone steals my G+ account, nothing much terrible will happen. It's not something that needs high security, I don't keep anything of value there (it's not a bank, not a cloud service, it's just some social media).
Re: They Don't Need G+ To Track You Anymore (Score:1)
Nope, I've been locked out of my Hotmail for months because they won't let you proceed without a phone # or 2nd email anymore. By contrast, I could create a new GMail without those, and could even skip the G+ creation by simply closing the tab when it got to that last step. In that sense, G+ only *looked* mandatory during account creation, and wasn't enforced in practice.
Re:They Don't Need G+ To Track You Anymore (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.
Re: (Score:3)
I'm really hoping this is signalling a shift that, yes, social media exists ... but it's not the be-all and end-all of technology.
Because I've seen way too many corporate presentations saying how everything was going to be done in social media, and "OMG! Teh Social!".
And, at the end of the day, these tools don't always pan out,
Re: (Score:2)
I don't understand the "core" users part. What does Google have other than G+ that people want, besides Youtube, which was acquired after G+ I thought. Do people really use picasa, which was the only thing G+ was trying to make me use.
Re: (Score:1)
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.
Which is not the same as trying to regain the trust of their users: Google tried to leverage us, to use it's dominant position to push us into an unwanted social network, and did so in sleazy ways ("Ok, We'll ask you again later").
Google owes us an apology. It's not enough to cancel G+ and try to quietly undo it.
I don't even have a phone (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:What about Android? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Yes please, I would comment on so many videos if I didn't need to go G+ to do it.
Re: (Score:1)
How about dropping the G+ requirement for adding photos to a Hangouts conversation next? This is completely nonsense as well. I end up having to GMAIL images to the very same contact.
Good move... (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.
Re: (Score:3)
Who wants to bet... (Score:1)
.. that Google+'s days are numbered?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
Play no longer appears to require Gmail (Score:2)
The one I'm waiting for is the decoupling of Gmail from Google Play.
That happened when Android Market became Google Play. In the Android Market days, logging in to Android Market with a non-Gmail Google account sent the user to the Gmail registration process: "tepples@example.com does not use Gmail. Add Gmail to your Google Account." But around the time it became Google Play Store, and certainly by the release of the first-generation Nexus 7 tablet in mid-2012, Google started letting non-Gmail Google Account holders sign in to Google Play.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:3)
Precisely. You can't rate or comment on an app without a G+ account. Which is why I haven't commented or rated any apps for the past 2 years.
Re: (Score:2)
Do you still have to give phone # to YouTube? (Score:2)
Let me know when I don't have to give my phone number to YouTube. I became strictly a passive viewer when that happened.
Can _I_ decouple? (Score:4, Insightful)
The real question, here, is whether or not I'll be able to decouple my gmail from the unused google+ profile that I had to create. I hate that I cannot have my real name on my email without having it spread all over the internet simultaneously.
Re: (Score:1)
Last time I checked, there was a way to delete your G+ account, and still be able to use GMail, etc....I know of a few people that had done just that for various reasons...
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks! Done and done.
Now I can change my gmail "display name" to be something other than my stupid, mandated Google+ name!
But will the Google Account bullshit remain? (Score:3)
When Google forced the Google+/Google account integration on the users, it wasn't just Google's "Social Network" that was forced upon us. The first hazzle I noticed was that I could not be logged in into Youtube and Gmail at the same time using the two different accounts that I had.
When I was logged into Youtube and wanted to check my mail, instead of a login prompt, I was prompted with a page offering me to "upgrade" the account, and vice versa.
I don't want the confidential correspondence I have with my doctor to be at the same security box as my list of favourite cat videos on Youtube. Youtube is used casually, while GMail is used seriously.
I still use Youtube and GMail a lot, but for a while now I use GMail exclusively in Private Browsing windows in Chromium, so that my credentials are kept separate. But I think that shouldn't be necessary.
YouTube and G+ (Score:2)
Well all I got to say is the day im forced (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I joined G+ because it was not Facebook. You can decide exactly who you share with, and you can follow other people without them also following you (ie, no pretending that the b-list celebrity is your friend).
I don't necessarily think Google is proud of Google+ or care about the numbers, Google treats G+ like a stray dog at the door, same as Google treats all its services.
Event Scheduling (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
G+ didn't have it at launch, but they added Events about a year in. It's awesome, with Google Calendar integration and even auto-backup photo sharing.
The problem, as always, is that most people don't use G+ and everyone uses Facebook.
Stop bundling. (Score:5, 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.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm personally tired of the google+ bashing. Everyone feels like google+ is being forced on them as the one and only undesirable google service. Look at it from the other side, google+ users are sick and tired of having google forced on them, or getting automatic youtube accounts, or having it linked to our android phones. We just want a nice social media site that is maintained and improved and that is not facebook.
still loving my g+ account (Score:3)
Had it a couple years now, and still using it daily. made a lot of friends on there, and I've had some fantastic debates. I still post two or three times a day to g+ and I've got around 14000 followers.
Re: (Score:1)
Had it a couple years now, and still using it daily. made a lot of friends on there, and I've had some fantastic debates. I still post two or three times a day to g+ and I've got around 14000 followers.
Obvious shill.
the core problem (Score:2)
The core problem is not Google+ (pustulent imposition that it was) but that Google does not provide clean answers about anything it does. Google's motto has long ceased being "don't be evil" and morphed into "that's for us to know, and users to divine".
My view is that happiness in life is directly proportional to eliminating all forms of "X behind a curtain" where X is man, woman, beast, tyrant, saint, priest, missionary, Smallpox vector, committee, club, association, organization, governmental body, natur
Re: (Score:1)
Nah. They'll just duct tape it onto Youtube.