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Google will no longer allow private Google profiles after July 31st
- mostly_harmless 15y agodoes this mean that you would not be able to make gmail accounts without them being linked to your identity? How far does this go, and what would be the visible effect on account management with google products?
- benologist 15y agoIt looks like (for now at least) Google Apps users are exempt, I get the "This service is not available" message.
- djtidau 15y agoGoogle apps users cannot currently create profiles. This is causing a bit of a problem among those of us which want to use our google apps accounts on Google+. They are looking to have this working in the coming months though.
- capnrefsmmat 15y agoThe article says: >If you currently have a private profile but you do not wish to make your profile public, you can delete your profile. Or, you can simply do nothing. All private profiles will be deleted after July 31, 2011. I'd assume this means you can make Gmail accounts not linked to your identity so long as you don't make a Google Profile.
- benologist 15y agoDo profiles get made automatically when you use <anything> or is this something manual you have to do?
- mooneater 15y agoName, ok... but why "gender"?
- mdwrigh2 15y agoI suspect it's due to internationalization reasons. Even in English, we don't really have useful singular third-person gender-neutral pronouns (yes, I'm aware of "they", but it's actually a debated topic). In other languages where everything has genders, there might not be a reason to have gender neutral pronouns whatsoever.
- killerswan 15y agoSo what? Gender isn't relevant to every online activity. A century ago we didn't have any gender neutral clothing, either: if we need better pronouns, then let's make some up.
- Groxx 15y ago>if we need better pronouns, then let's make some up. For every language?
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- carbonica 15y agoPerhaps Google finds asking users for their gender (which is highly correlated with your name, anyway) to be an easier task than introducing the necessary pronouns into every language in the globe.
- rryan 15y agoWhat about languages that don't have gender neutral pronouns?
- callahad 15y ago
- nodata 15y agoThis sounds scary at first, but it seems to only apply to a profile which I have apparently or apparently not created. They have the default right too (unlike facebook): I don't get an automatic opt-in, I get an automatic opt-out. The only thing left to clarify (as mostly_harmless writes) is the connection of a profile to other gmail services. If they get the balance wrong here, they're done. If they don't - and they seem to be doing a pretty good job so far.
- jeggers5 15y agoImagine if Facebook did this. again. the world might just end.
- pilgrim689 15y agoShhhh, you're on HN. Google is the be all end all. Look how they gather in denial.
- jeggers5 15y agoWho the hell voted me down and why. That's actually ridiculous.
- calloc 15y agoAnd private profiles will be deleted. You are getting down voted because you are making this out to be a bigger issue than it is.
- daimyoyo 15y agoAccording to Google[1]: "Deleting your profile won't delete your Google Account." Keep that in mind before you get too outraged at this. [1]http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=97703 http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/answer.py?hl=en&#...
- nextparadigms 15y agoA Google profile is not the same thing as a Facebook profile. You can have a Google account without a Google profile. That's why when you delete a profile, it doesn't mean it deletes the whole account. Geesh, such a misleading article. Was this pushed by that Facebook PR firm again?
- Groxx 15y agohugely linkbait title (same as the article, not blaming submitter). And it looks like it may have been something more accurate originally, note the text of the link (to the same article) in the top 4 links: >No private profiles on Google ... Gotta wonder who pushed for this title.
- yanw 15y agoThis is irresponsibly misleading. Here is the relevant text: http://www.google.com/support/profiles/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1192471&p=public_profile http://www.google.com/support/profiles/bin/answer.py?hl=en&#... If you currently have a private profile but you do not wish to make your profile public, you can delete your profile. Or, you can simply do nothing. All private profiles will be deleted after July 31, 2011. Private profiles will be deleted not become public, the author should be ashamed.
- levesque 15y agoI bet the author got exactly what he aimed for, which is a lot of traffic. This type of news writer intentionally aims for such sensationalistic headlines, even though they end up dis-informing people (one great example of this is Fox news).
- getone 15y agowtf are you two talking about. The author never says anything about them "becoming public". He just says that after the 31st, all profiles will BE public (since they delete all private ones).
- Groxx 15y agoWhich, because it doesn't imply any are excluded ("all profiles"), implies all existing profiles, public and private, will be public. From there it's a pretty straight conclusion to think they'll switch existing private ones to public. The rest of the article (actual text of release excluded) reinforces this conclusion, and does precisely nothing to discourage it. Of course, anyone reading the actual text of the release will understand what's going on. But A) clearly few of the commenters there did so, and B) they've already linkbaited their way to free advertising / ad revenue.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- madaxe 15y agoWell, that won't affect me, because I'm a paying google apps user, which makes me a second class citizen without a profile. Good-oh.