8 ms·

Google Introduces Facebook Competitor, Emphasizing Privacy

162 points by rakkhi 15y ago

brudgers 15y ago
>"Mr. Gundotra and Mr. Horowitz said that knowing more about individual Google users will improve all Google products, including ads, search, YouTube and maps, because Google will learn what people like and eventually be able to personalize those products." I am obviously ignorant in my belief: privacy != Google obtaining and storing increasingly intimate personal data
- stephenr 15y ago
  Exactly. Who in their right mind would use the social services of a company like this: >"Google settled with the Federal Trade Commission over charges of deceptive privacy practices related to Buzz and agreed to 20 years of audits."
  - pavel_lishin 15y ago
    The same people who use Facebook because they a) don't know about the privacy issues, or b) don't care, or c) use it to promote their business (much like Pages on Facebook.)
  - joebadmo 15y ago
    Doesn't that mean they're going to be more trustworthy than anyone else? They've got direct supervision from the federal government.
    - pavel_lishin 15y ago
      Sure, like a drug dealer is more trustworthy because he's on parole and has to meet with a parole officer once a month.
      - joebadmo 15y ago
        That doesn't seem like an accurate analogy to me. Google was being investigated for what were basically accidental breeches of privacy, not for anything that was actively malicious.
      - int3rnaut 15y ago
        One rock of Google+ please my good sir.
- alecco 15y ago
  They mean privacy with respect with other users. Newspeak. I hope this way of interpreting the word doesn't catch on.
  - contextfree 15y ago
    I'm sympathetic to these worries, but to play devil's advocate I wonder which kind of privacy most people actually care more about. Given the choice between having one's boss/co-workers/family/spouse learn some embarrassing secret about you, and having random strangers at a large corporation learn it, which would most people pick?
    - stephenr 15y ago
      When that random stranger is Eric Schmidt & co...?
      - contextfree 15y ago
        Which will directly affect me more, my wife learning about my adulterous affair, or Eric Schmidt learning about my affair?
        snippyhollow 15y ago
        Which will directly affect humanity more?
    - Clue 15y ago
      I prefer a random stranger to know that I was out drinking last night vs my boss. One has more immediate implications to my income the other, much less likely.
    - bct 15y ago
      There's no question that people care more about what their immediate acquaintances know about them. That doesn't mean it's a great path for society, though. Unfortunately the fashionable thing to do these days is to assume that everything will work out for the best on its own.
- amalcon 15y ago
  That's what I was thinking. If my options are "A company that openly ignores its users' privacy" and "A company whose core competency is data mining", I'm likely to continue with option C: Don't use either. Being entirely fair, Google is better about the whole privacy thing. This is undeniable: barring government requests and rogue sysadmins, only algorithms look at my data. It's plausible that an algorithm will remain impartial. Google just also has a lot more information about me already. I'm hesitant to hand over any more.
  - pstack 15y ago
    Even if privacy weren't a concern, I don't see the point in using either one. People have email. If I really need to talk to or share something with someone, I'll email them. Or occasionally, IM them. Or maybe even call them. Or if they're nearby, maybe go have lunch with them. I don't need to share everything every day at all times with everyone. Nobody is that interesting. Nobody is that interested. And nothing is that vital.
    - pyre 15y ago
      ACLs (Access Control Lists) are the real benefit that social networks give. It's a system where loads of people already have an account, so it's easy to share things (e.g. photos) with a limited set of people. Obviously you can ask people to sign up for an account on <site where you photos are>, but asking people to sign up for Yet Another Web Account just seems 'dirty.' You could host it somewhere with a single password, but then it's hard to revoke access, or sent certain sets of photos to certain people. You could have per-album passwords, but now people have to remember (or write down) a list of passwords and map them to the albums that they are associated with.
  - spodek 15y ago
    A lot of people have posted here about alternatives that retain privacy, then others lament "who would do it? ... could a start-up succeed?" There is an alternative -- on the horizon, anyway -- that's all about privacy. You don't have to choose between privacy from your community and privacy from a faceless corporation. The FreedomBox project -- http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org, inspired by Eben Moglen, who helped write the GPL -- aims to create a network where users own their own data. If you've used, say, Wikipedia or a site run on Linux, you know how projects based on his vision can work in time. It's not ready here and now, but this community can help contribute to it. One component to FreedomBox is to replace many current "cloud-based" services which gather and store personal data with peer-to-peer versions where you own your data on your FreedomBox.
- mostly_harmless 15y ago
  well, personally I would much prefer only google having my information (and using it for google ads or whatever they use it for) than a bunch of unknown third parties. But that is assuming that google does not pass it off also, which im not quite sure of
ltamake 15y ago
Advertising your site as a "Facebook competitor" (instead of implying it) is a recipe for failure because you want people to look at your site as something completely unique rather than putting it next to Facebook immediately.
- pavel_lishin 15y ago
  I think that's true for small startups, but for someone like Google? Presumably, nearly everyone with a gmail address will already be a user, which means that there won't be any migration hassles - "I'd join, but Timmy and Jimbo aren't on GooBook yet!"
  - ltamake 15y ago
    Apple tried to use the same philosophy: everyone has an Apple ID, so there's no migration issue. Look how that turned out. But I understand what point you're trying to make. This will get used, but I don't see it becoming a true Facebook rival because of the network effect Facebook relies on. If users were to migrate in masses, on the other hand, Facebook would be dead within a short amount of time. Sadly, that's not going to happen anytime soon.
    - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
      Switching social networks is not the same as switching email services. You don't just up and move. Millions switched from MySpace to Facebook but what they really did was join Facebook while still using MySpace. And then using MySpace less. And then not at all. So, in theory, people could "join" Google+ because they see it in the toolbar while they're searching, and if there are a few killer features that bring them back (Hangouts? Sparks?) they might use Facebook less. And eventually maybe enough of their friends are on Google+ that they stop using Facebook. Or maybe not. But they definitely don't need to make a walk-the-plank decision today.
      - ltamake 15y ago
        MySpace wasn't prepared for Facebook, and ignored it until about 2009 when it was too late. People saw their friends on Facebook, so they stopped using MySpace (hence the network effect I mentioned earlier). Facebook /will/ fight for its social dominance, but (generally speaking) there is a site out there that they don't know about and won't be prepared for (aka "the next Facebook")
bmac27 15y ago
Count me as one of the folks that believes Google ought to fix search before it takes on the juggernauts of the consumer web. But that could just be the SEO in me talking.
- beck5 15y ago
  isn't a lot of the future of search potentially tied into social?
  - brown9-2 15y ago
    How so? How will knowing what my friends and contacts "like" help Google not respond to my searches with content farm-ed crap?
    - cryptoz 15y ago
      > How will knowing what my friends and contacts "like" help Google not respond to my searches with content farm-ed crap? If your friends "like" a Stack Exchange post but not Experts Exchange, isn't it obvious how this would help them filter out the bad ones?
      - paganel 15y ago
        98% of my FB friends don't know about Stack Exchange or Experts Exchange. The other 2% are my IT-department co-workers.
        true_religion 15y ago
        Do 98% of your facebook friends search on subjects that would be found at Stack Exchange or Experts Exchange? If the answer is no, then any algorithm that takes into account collective searches and 'likes' will ignore them because they wouldn't fit within the cluster of people relevant to that search term.
  - bmac27 15y ago
bergie 15y ago
The challenges Google Plus faces are quite apparent from the end of the article page. Right next to the link to page 2 there is: Connect with The New York Times on Facebook.
- bad_user 15y ago
  If Google gives benefits in their search results to content websites that integrate with their own +1, I'm pretty sure that's not a problem ;-)
amanelis 15y ago
I definitely tried to sign up and after submitting the form on the "Keep me Posted" page, I got a 500 internal server error. Good job google
raheemm 15y ago
If another startup creates a social network allowing greater privacy, smaller groups, levels of social circles, then I'd gladly switch to them. But never to Google.
- Clue 15y ago
  What if it was created by Microsoft? What about Apple?
  - pyre 15y ago
    > What about Apple? Customer: My friends and family found out that I was sleeping around on my wife! Apple allowed this to happen! Steve Jobs: Just change your friends and family. Not that big of a deal. [1] http://www.tipb.com/2009/11/20/steve-jobs-tells-ipodrip-change-big-deal/ http://www.tipb.com/2009/11/20/steve-jobs-tells-ipodrip-chan...
- niktech 15y ago
  I actually own the domain NewCircles.com and was working on an idea very similar to what Google has done here (including group video chat) but with emphasis on users finding and joining NEW circles instead of just organizing existing friends into circles. Think Meetup mashed with Facebook with a dash of Chatroulette. After this announcement I'm not sure if I should continue working on my project...
  - akkartik 15y ago
    No comment on whether you should continue, but this would be a poor reason to give up.
    - Kliment 15y ago
      It increases the likelihood of google acquiring you if you do it well, if anything.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
paganel 15y ago
> One of the nice things about the product is its whimsical nature — a puff of smoke and a -1 animation appears when you remove a friend, and when you remove a social circle, it rolls away off the screen. They left out the <marquee> tag or the comic-sans font, because that's what I call whimsical. Anyway, I wish them most of luck in stealing FB's 500+ million users. They're going to need it, both the luck and the users.
websymphony 15y ago
What if the exact same service, with exact same feature set was introduced by a startup and not Google? Would we still see the same type of hostility towards that too? I don't think so. Yes, it is correct that google harvests your information to feed you more targeted ads. But it doesn't mean that if a startup, started initially as a "do no evil" company becomes as big as google or facebook won't do the same(targeted ads). Since all these services are free to use, easiest or maybe only possible way to make profit off them is by advertising. Since nothing comes for free, you will pay for the service by sharing your personal information. Which in turn means onus lies on you to see what is it that you want to share.
- brudgers 15y ago
  >"What if the exact same service, with exact same feature set was introduced by a startup and not Google?" I suspect that the New York Times would be more circumspect in their use of the word "privacy" and not employ it in such a narrow sense in their headline. To put it another way, I agree with your argument regarding the relationship between free services and advertising. The lack of journalism in the article is more unusual, which given the huge changes in what constitutes news over the past several years, is saying a lot.
knieveltech 15y ago
The "keep me posted" form produces a 500 error. Not off to an auspicious start.
- theycallmemorty 15y ago
  I got a 404.
  - huckfinnaafb 15y ago
    200 here
- corryf 15y ago
  When this happened to me, I noticed there was a 'en-gb' in the URL. I switched it to 'en-us' and it worked.
dengzhi 15y ago
why don't my posts show up on hacker news
spaghetti 15y ago
Just an aside: I'm having fun imagining a single-click "move from Facebook to Google+" link going viral. I don't know if it's technically possible. But consider the people who browse while signed into Facebook. Add the ability to export your Facebook data (not 100% sure this is possible). Doesn't seem too far-fetched that Google could cobble something together. Also when I click and move everything over perhaps my friends would be informed/spammed about the move with the option to move themselves. It's "Facebook-magedon"!!
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
ern 15y ago
Does it require a public Google Profile, like Buzz now does? To me, the answer to that question would be important indicator of how much Google+ emphasizes privacy.

162 points by rakkhi 15y ago

>"Mr. Gundotra and Mr. Horowitz said that knowing more about individual Google users will improve all Google products, including ads, search, YouTube and maps, because Google will learn what people like and eventually be able to personalize those products." I am obviously ignorant in my belief: privacy != Google obtaining and storing increasingly intimate personal data

stephenr 15y ago
Exactly. Who in their right mind would use the social services of a company like this: >"Google settled with the Federal Trade Commission over charges of deceptive privacy practices related to Buzz and agreed to 20 years of audits."
- pavel_lishin 15y ago
  The same people who use Facebook because they a) don't know about the privacy issues, or b) don't care, or c) use it to promote their business (much like Pages on Facebook.)
- joebadmo 15y ago
  Doesn't that mean they're going to be more trustworthy than anyone else? They've got direct supervision from the federal government.
  - pavel_lishin 15y ago
    Sure, like a drug dealer is more trustworthy because he's on parole and has to meet with a parole officer once a month.
    - joebadmo 15y ago
      That doesn't seem like an accurate analogy to me. Google was being investigated for what were basically accidental breeches of privacy, not for anything that was actively malicious.
    - int3rnaut 15y ago
      One rock of Google+ please my good sir.
alecco 15y ago
They mean privacy with respect with other users. Newspeak. I hope this way of interpreting the word doesn't catch on.
- contextfree 15y ago
  I'm sympathetic to these worries, but to play devil's advocate I wonder which kind of privacy most people actually care more about. Given the choice between having one's boss/co-workers/family/spouse learn some embarrassing secret about you, and having random strangers at a large corporation learn it, which would most people pick?
  - stephenr 15y ago
    When that random stranger is Eric Schmidt & co...?
    - contextfree 15y ago
      Which will directly affect me more, my wife learning about my adulterous affair, or Eric Schmidt learning about my affair?
      - snippyhollow 15y ago
        Which will directly affect humanity more?
  - Clue 15y ago
    I prefer a random stranger to know that I was out drinking last night vs my boss. One has more immediate implications to my income the other, much less likely.
  - bct 15y ago
    There's no question that people care more about what their immediate acquaintances know about them. That doesn't mean it's a great path for society, though. Unfortunately the fashionable thing to do these days is to assume that everything will work out for the best on its own.
amalcon 15y ago
That's what I was thinking. If my options are "A company that openly ignores its users' privacy" and "A company whose core competency is data mining", I'm likely to continue with option C: Don't use either. Being entirely fair, Google is better about the whole privacy thing. This is undeniable: barring government requests and rogue sysadmins, only algorithms look at my data. It's plausible that an algorithm will remain impartial. Google just also has a lot more information about me already. I'm hesitant to hand over any more.
- pstack 15y ago
  Even if privacy weren't a concern, I don't see the point in using either one. People have email. If I really need to talk to or share something with someone, I'll email them. Or occasionally, IM them. Or maybe even call them. Or if they're nearby, maybe go have lunch with them. I don't need to share everything every day at all times with everyone. Nobody is that interesting. Nobody is that interested. And nothing is that vital.
  - pyre 15y ago
    ACLs (Access Control Lists) are the real benefit that social networks give. It's a system where loads of people already have an account, so it's easy to share things (e.g. photos) with a limited set of people. Obviously you can ask people to sign up for an account on <site where you photos are>, but asking people to sign up for Yet Another Web Account just seems 'dirty.' You could host it somewhere with a single password, but then it's hard to revoke access, or sent certain sets of photos to certain people. You could have per-album passwords, but now people have to remember (or write down) a list of passwords and map them to the albums that they are associated with.
- spodek 15y ago
  A lot of people have posted here about alternatives that retain privacy, then others lament "who would do it? ... could a start-up succeed?" There is an alternative -- on the horizon, anyway -- that's all about privacy. You don't have to choose between privacy from your community and privacy from a faceless corporation. The FreedomBox project -- http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org, inspired by Eben Moglen, who helped write the GPL -- aims to create a network where users own their own data. If you've used, say, Wikipedia or a site run on Linux, you know how projects based on his vision can work in time. It's not ready here and now, but this community can help contribute to it. One component to FreedomBox is to replace many current "cloud-based" services which gather and store personal data with peer-to-peer versions where you own your data on your FreedomBox.
mostly_harmless 15y ago
well, personally I would much prefer only google having my information (and using it for google ads or whatever they use it for) than a bunch of unknown third parties. But that is assuming that google does not pass it off also, which im not quite sure of

ltamake 15y ago

Advertising your site as a "Facebook competitor" (instead of implying it) is a recipe for failure because you want people to look at your site as something completely unique rather than putting it next to Facebook immediately.

pavel_lishin 15y ago
I think that's true for small startups, but for someone like Google? Presumably, nearly everyone with a gmail address will already be a user, which means that there won't be any migration hassles - "I'd join, but Timmy and Jimbo aren't on GooBook yet!"
- ltamake 15y ago
  Apple tried to use the same philosophy: everyone has an Apple ID, so there's no migration issue. Look how that turned out. But I understand what point you're trying to make. This will get used, but I don't see it becoming a true Facebook rival because of the network effect Facebook relies on. If users were to migrate in masses, on the other hand, Facebook would be dead within a short amount of time. Sadly, that's not going to happen anytime soon.
  - MatthewPhillips 15y ago
    Switching social networks is not the same as switching email services. You don't just up and move. Millions switched from MySpace to Facebook but what they really did was join Facebook while still using MySpace. And then using MySpace less. And then not at all. So, in theory, people could "join" Google+ because they see it in the toolbar while they're searching, and if there are a few killer features that bring them back (Hangouts? Sparks?) they might use Facebook less. And eventually maybe enough of their friends are on Google+ that they stop using Facebook. Or maybe not. But they definitely don't need to make a walk-the-plank decision today.
    - ltamake 15y ago
      MySpace wasn't prepared for Facebook, and ignored it until about 2009 when it was too late. People saw their friends on Facebook, so they stopped using MySpace (hence the network effect I mentioned earlier). Facebook /will/ fight for its social dominance, but (generally speaking) there is a site out there that they don't know about and won't be prepared for (aka "the next Facebook")

bmac27 15y ago

Count me as one of the folks that believes Google ought to fix search before it takes on the juggernauts of the consumer web. But that could just be the SEO in me talking.

beck5 15y ago
isn't a lot of the future of search potentially tied into social?
- brown9-2 15y ago
  How so? How will knowing what my friends and contacts "like" help Google not respond to my searches with content farm-ed crap?
  - cryptoz 15y ago
    > How will knowing what my friends and contacts "like" help Google not respond to my searches with content farm-ed crap? If your friends "like" a Stack Exchange post but not Experts Exchange, isn't it obvious how this would help them filter out the bad ones?
    - paganel 15y ago
      98% of my FB friends don't know about Stack Exchange or Experts Exchange. The other 2% are my IT-department co-workers.
      - true_religion 15y ago
        Do 98% of your facebook friends search on subjects that would be found at Stack Exchange or Experts Exchange? If the answer is no, then any algorithm that takes into account collective searches and 'likes' will ignore them because they wouldn't fit within the cluster of people relevant to that search term.
- bmac27 15y ago

bergie 15y ago

The challenges Google Plus faces are quite apparent from the end of the article page. Right next to the link to page 2 there is: Connect with The New York Times on Facebook.

bad_user 15y ago
If Google gives benefits in their search results to content websites that integrate with their own +1, I'm pretty sure that's not a problem ;-)

amanelis 15y ago

I definitely tried to sign up and after submitting the form on the "Keep me Posted" page, I got a 500 internal server error. Good job google

raheemm 15y ago

If another startup creates a social network allowing greater privacy, smaller groups, levels of social circles, then I'd gladly switch to them. But never to Google.

Clue 15y ago
What if it was created by Microsoft? What about Apple?
- pyre 15y ago
  > What about Apple? Customer: My friends and family found out that I was sleeping around on my wife! Apple allowed this to happen! Steve Jobs: Just change your friends and family. Not that big of a deal. [1] http://www.tipb.com/2009/11/20/steve-jobs-tells-ipodrip-change-big-deal/ http://www.tipb.com/2009/11/20/steve-jobs-tells-ipodrip-chan...
niktech 15y ago
I actually own the domain NewCircles.com and was working on an idea very similar to what Google has done here (including group video chat) but with emphasis on users finding and joining NEW circles instead of just organizing existing friends into circles. Think Meetup mashed with Facebook with a dash of Chatroulette. After this announcement I'm not sure if I should continue working on my project...
- akkartik 15y ago
  No comment on whether you should continue, but this would be a poor reason to give up.
  - Kliment 15y ago
    It increases the likelihood of google acquiring you if you do it well, if anything.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

paganel 15y ago

> One of the nice things about the product is its whimsical nature — a puff of smoke and a -1 animation appears when you remove a friend, and when you remove a social circle, it rolls away off the screen. They left out the <marquee> tag or the comic-sans font, because that's what I call whimsical. Anyway, I wish them most of luck in stealing FB's 500+ million users. They're going to need it, both the luck and the users.

websymphony 15y ago

What if the exact same service, with exact same feature set was introduced by a startup and not Google? Would we still see the same type of hostility towards that too? I don't think so. Yes, it is correct that google harvests your information to feed you more targeted ads. But it doesn't mean that if a startup, started initially as a "do no evil" company becomes as big as google or facebook won't do the same(targeted ads). Since all these services are free to use, easiest or maybe only possible way to make profit off them is by advertising. Since nothing comes for free, you will pay for the service by sharing your personal information. Which in turn means onus lies on you to see what is it that you want to share.

brudgers 15y ago
>"What if the exact same service, with exact same feature set was introduced by a startup and not Google?" I suspect that the New York Times would be more circumspect in their use of the word "privacy" and not employ it in such a narrow sense in their headline. To put it another way, I agree with your argument regarding the relationship between free services and advertising. The lack of journalism in the article is more unusual, which given the huge changes in what constitutes news over the past several years, is saying a lot.

knieveltech 15y ago

The "keep me posted" form produces a 500 error. Not off to an auspicious start.

theycallmemorty 15y ago
I got a 404.
- huckfinnaafb 15y ago
  200 here
corryf 15y ago
When this happened to me, I noticed there was a 'en-gb' in the URL. I switched it to 'en-us' and it worked.

dengzhi 15y ago

why don't my posts show up on hacker news

spaghetti 15y ago

Just an aside: I'm having fun imagining a single-click "move from Facebook to Google+" link going viral. I don't know if it's technically possible. But consider the people who browse while signed into Facebook. Add the ability to export your Facebook data (not 100% sure this is possible). Doesn't seem too far-fetched that Google could cobble something together. Also when I click and move everything over perhaps my friends would be informed/spammed about the move with the option to move themselves. It's "Facebook-magedon"!!

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

ern 15y ago

Does it require a public Google Profile, like Buzz now does? To me, the answer to that question would be important indicator of how much Google+ emphasizes privacy.