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Google+ broke our trust

zdnet.com

31–40 of 251 posts

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#31

I don't get it. So Brin announces to the world that Google+ is the new sliced bread in 2011. Then he tells a small group of people that he thinks he personally should not have been involved with G+. Also the leader of the G+ project leaves (one month after the project started? One month after Brin had his candid talk recently?) Where in this is the broken trust? What is the author actually upset about? Seems to me li…

the point of the article is that google has lost trust, and google+ along with strange, self-serving behavior of executives is how. that much is undeniable.

What was the underhanded thing that it did? If you put your real name AND sensitive info into a public system, especially one you do not understand, what do you trust will happen? What does Brin's confession of not being the best person to create a social network have to do with it?

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the point of the article is that google has lost trust, and google+ along with strange, self-serving behavior of executives is how. that much is undeniable.

What was the underhanded thing that it did? If you put your real name AND sensitive info into a public system, especially one you do not understand, what do you trust will happen? What does Brin's confession of not being the best person to create a social network have to do with it?

If you put your real name AND sensitive info into a public system

A _changing_ public system. You put your phone number into your address book. You sign up for a Gmail address. Fast forward one year, these items are suddenly combined without warning.

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#34
I jumped on board early when I received an invite. I despised FB and was looking for for something that might actually resemble the tribe.net model of freedom and anonymity.

Unfortunately, I was told that I had to use my real name and signed up accordingly.

Everything was going along fine for about the first 9 months until I got into a small flame war with a woman in Canada about Scientologists (I used to work for some). That turned out to be the end of G+ for me.

It seems that the woman reported me for using a pseudonym, which to me and a few of my friends I obviously wasn't. I was livid! I immediately protested loud and clear in my timeline. One of my "hooped" IRL friends works at Yahoo! and told me that he had good connections at Google and could probably fix it for me. And that if he couldn't do that that he could at least vouch for me.

As he was trying to work his magic the pressure from Google was getting stronger. I had a big notice across my profile telling me that if I didn't provide legal proof of who I was that my account would be suspended in a week. I received the same threats in my gmail. So I started trying to work with them on this matter only to find that I was dealing with bots. I was beyond frustrated!

A few days later my friend came back to me and told me that there didn't seem to be much that he could do. I sure as hell didn't want to send them my my ID or birth certificate! So I caved in, scanned a court document with my full name on it and a judge's signature, and gmail'd it it.

I should mention that by this point Google had decided to lock my profile and place a huge notice across it demanding documents.

It took almost a full 2 weeks for them to get back to me and say that my document was legit. Well, duh!!

With my new found "legal" status I continued to use G+ for about another year or so. But as time marched on I became more and more disillusioned with Google and their products and interacted less and less with G+.

Then June 5th 2013 happened and I was introduced to the world of Edward Snowden. I immediately went and deleted everything from my profile and timeline (no small chore!). I then put a notice on my "about" page stating that due to privacy issues with Google and the NSA that this account is no longer active.

I now only use my gmail account, have been a happy DDG and IXquick user since before this all went down, and haven't been back to G+ since.

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#35

What made Google special in the past was having principles and walking the talk. Those days when Altavista wanted to force people into watching noisy pop up advertisements with annoying colors before you could search anything, and this small company decided to just display text. The days when everybody was onto portals to make the web enclosed inside gatekeepers hand and Google brought freedom. Those days are over. J…

>What made Google special in the past was having principles and walking the talk.

Principles? BS. What made Google special in the past was it started as an underdog (back in the day) and wanted to get people to get to using it (not just for search, but for several products it unveilled, to expand their fall-back options).

After it got people by the balls with Search, Gmail and Android, it's "so long, suckers".

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#36
post #22
post #15

I miss the days of Google Labs and twenty percent time.

Me too. I remember being excited about seeing what Google's next big thing was. I lost hope when Reader was shut down.

The Real Name policy was the beginning of the end for me, Reader being shut down made me lose interest in all new Google products, and Snowden made me stop using some of the ones I already had been.

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#37
post #24

> With Google+, it became clear that we were all little more than webs of flesh spun over packages of saleable data. What data is allegedly being sold, and who is Google selling it to?

The data is basically what products you like or might like. They sell this to anyone who wants to advertise using Adsense.

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#38

If there's one video that shows off the purposefully confusing Google+ and Youtube integration mess, its this one of a woman literally crying because of it. Warning: Strong language https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxiwu4MaJs

Hey, I can find videos of people angry at about anything that exists.

Apple: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFOx81Lm34c Facebook: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yhPzx2KLoUg Nature: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJNqn-Y3pdY

Ah! Why is it so hard to make everyone happy?

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#40

I wish both Google and Microsoft would understand that you can't force change down users' throats. It needs to come naturally. They need to want it, and have it grow organically . Sure, forcing them will definitely bring you bigger "adoption" (for lack of a better word) faster, but it will also build up a lot of resentment, potentially negating any advantage you might have from ramming the change through, in the long…

I disagree. Facebook forces changes upon users all the time, with success. For example, the news feed was suddenly forced on everyone, even amid much protest. The difference between FB and Google+ is that most users end up liking FB's changes, whereas that can't be said of Google+.
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