Google+ broke our trust • Hacker News Board

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#151

Post by ben0x539 » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 4:48 PM UTC

fzltrp wrote: post #98

I don't think that G+ was a mistake. The only real issue is the real name policy, though I fail to see how they'd be able to enforce it. People could create alternate email addresses with fake names (and some did), and use it when they want to participate social "i-events" without giving up their id. It's been like that before G+, and it would only take a small move from them to correct it. Of course, the downside of…

The problem with "people could just create fake identities" is that they'd basically be permanently living with the fear of being caught by google and having their entire identity erased, and all the comments would just be "duh, what did they expect creating an alternate email address with a fake name?"

That a bad policy is inconsistently enforced doesn't really make it any less harmful. Selective enforcement is more evil if anything, imo.

> Btw, am I the only one to find the article title offensive, and unworthy of a place like zdnet?

It's much less offensive than the G+ real name policy, so that's a weird focus. ;)

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#152

Post by maxerickson » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 4:53 PM UTC

taejo wrote: post #27

afarrell wrote: post #5

For some reason, my email address is now linked to a name that is not mine. I've not yet bothered to figure out how to change it, but I wish for the sake of trans people that this error had been more common.

Gmail insists on respelling the name of one of my contacts; it's only one letter different, but it's slightly embarrassing that I seem not to know his name after eight years of working together.

Having never experienced anything like this from Gmail, I wonder if you have the misspelling stored in a contact.

I even have a sort of contrary anecdote, I added an accent to a contact name a few years ago and it has always just worked.

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#153

Post by Al-Khwarizmi » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 4:55 PM UTC

nobbyclark wrote: post #64

dm2 wrote: post #46

I'd love to see Google+ turn into a LinkedIn and Facebook killer. I just have no use for Google+ at the moment. I don't really like the tiles display and would prefer a list. The YouTube integration doesn't bother me at all because 1) I don't post YouTube comments, and 2) it's easy enough to just create a separate account for using with services that you don't want associated with your main Google account.

IMO the silently majority is tired of a panopticon of "look it me now" social services who's main use case is massaging users egos. Google should start over, Android-first (instead of web -first) and make the phone Addressbook / Google Contacts the focal point for everything social. Look at WhatsApp - it does exactly this - your phone number is your ID and your contacts is your social graph; how you interact with the…

WhatsApp is awful. Why should I need to give my phone number to anyone I want to chat with? There is people with whom I might want to have a text chat without letting them call me, and vice versa. And why, in 2014, should a social account be tied to a particular device? Why doesn't WhatsApp let me use my tablet or my PC to interact with my friends?

If WhatsApp is an example of something, it's that the network effect can make inferior technologies "stick" and dominate markets over much better competitors.

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#154

Post by chaser7016 » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 4:56 PM UTC

Google Buzz and now Google+.

Google stop trying to be Facebook! You need to change course and focus on the consumer(customer service) & their privacy.

Otherwise others will and are starting to eat your lunch!

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#155

Post by vidarh » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 4:59 PM UTC

IgorPartola wrote: post #130

vidarh wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From where do you get the idea that the author is complaining about anything being underhanded ? Brin's "confession" has something to do with it because he was instrumental to creating it in the first place, and someone with the power to correct many of the problems if he wanted to. Instead he's washed his hands of it, and left a segment of his users in the lurch.

The author is complaining about losing trust.

Losing trust does not imply that anything underhanded has occurred.

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#156

Post by matwood » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 5:00 PM UTC

galfarragem wrote: post #117

sumedh wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Add Google Buzz, Orkut, Google Wave, Google Talk, Hangouts. Its like Google is trying everything and hoping something would stick.

You don't see Apple making that. They focus on few things and make them great.

Like Ping? Every company has failures. Apple is much more secretive about what it is trying whereas Google is more open. As such the public sees all the 'beta' Google products, many of which will be closed down. There are benefits to both approaches.

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#157

Post by fjabre » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 5:00 PM UTC

mikevm wrote: post #143

Silhouette wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there was a more thought-provoking part than the "broke everything it touched" line: Google's executive chairman Eric Schmidt told National Public Radio digital editor Andy Carvin in 2011 that if people don't want to use their real names, then they shouldn't use Google+. He explained that Google should be considered "an identity service" with Google+ as the foundation across all its products. Google, particul…

> There are plenty of alternative search engines, e-mail services, video hosting sites, mobile operating systems and browsers. Really? And who knows about all those alternatives? I realized how big Google was when I was reading a book and the author said "Google , ....", and it took me a second to parse that sentence. At first glance I thought he was saying something about Google corporation, but then I quickly reali…

Yes, it's a utility now as the OP pointed out.

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#158

Post by aragot » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 5:00 PM UTC

ronaldx wrote: post #145

thefreeman wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't really understand the effort of deleting everything either. I highly doubt Google ever really deletes anything. Once you've sent it to their servers, the cat is out of the bag.

> I can't really understand the effort of deleting everything either. I highly doubt Google ever really deletes anything. Once you've sent it to their servers, the cat is out of the bag. There are presumably technical differences in how this data is stored and processed over time, which may not be insignificant. Delete data today and it might be wiped; delete data tomorrow and it might be parcelled into a company tak…

I tend to think that deleting data gets it flagged forever. What are the last 5 status updates you deleted on Facebook, if you ever did it? How many dollars would you pay for your worst ennemy's deleted posts?

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#159

Post by varelse » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 5:08 PM UTC

tlogan wrote: post #139

bane wrote: post #129

> Google+ embodied the Internet's cardinal sin: It broke everything it touched I think this is the most important single line of the piece. G+ was pretty broken from the get go despite some promising ideas. But instead of focusing around what was working, Google simply amplified all the broken garbage -- then spread it around everywhere, making everything toxic, cancerous. It's one of those many weird cases where you…

> Red flags were raised and simply brushed aside. People working at Google are smart (and majority that I know are smarter than me). Smart people are going to point that something is wrong. But they will not bitch too much because that will be "career-limiting move".

Not true, I was at Google at the time and many of us complained mightily on our internal forums.

That said, there were a disturbing number of middle-level management types that would high five every move Google made, good or bad. And I think they turn into the echo chamber that gives idiocy like this its momentum.

Re: Google+ broke our trust

#160

Post by rasz_pl » Sat, Jun 07, 2014, 5:11 PM UTC

sbarre wrote: post #2

Is it even possible to reverse course on the G+ integrations now? Would Google even want to, even if everyone agreed it was a bad idea in the first place?

Do you realize how much more advertisers are willing to pay for targeted campaigns? That real identity G+ policy wasnt to stop trolls or some other bullshit, it was to build better database.