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What product? they're trying to consolidate their login system across products, and you happen to get a social profile with the bundle. It's not like you even h

What product? they're trying to consolidate their login system across products, and you happen to get a social profile with the bundle. It's not like you even have to use it or be aware of its existence, if you don't need it.

pasbesoin 13y ago
The Google+ "social" product. I'm not sure of its current state, as everything is a moving target, but at the time I acquired one, the creation flow was deliberately somewhat misleading, for example not pointing out that you don't need to supply a profile photo. And/or there was one question that required a response; some googling (irony?) revealed that one could remove the answer or its public visibility after signing up. And this was after much of the initial foofera (sp?), that had already caused Google to scale back some of its demands for/during the sign up flow, IIRC. Plus had/has a lot going for it. Then, they tried to cram it (and "true names", etc.) down our throat. Opt-in. Carrot first, not stick. -- P.S. Let me put it this way: I want the ability to choose for myself and entirely what aspects of a "Google profile" I make public. Separately, I'll also add that as Google has gobbled up more and more popular products, I've become increasingly leery of a single profile that tracks and analyzes me across all of them and their varied and diverse functionality. I'm not doing anything particularly nefarious. But when the price Amazon charges me depends on a profile, and my insurance rate or ability to get insurance may depend on another profile and "social graph", etc., etc... And also on principle and for some sense of privacy and peace of mind (however incomplete)... Monocultures are subject to disease and corruption. One analogy that I might extent to online cultures. I don't want all my eggs in one basket -- especially when it's not even by my choice.
- tiziano88 13y ago
  You do realize that YouTube is still owned by Google, and therefore if they wanted to consider your profiles as one, they probably can already? My guess it's that they're trying (more or less successfully) to reduce the confusion, by not letting users sign up several times for all their products (which in the end is only one product -- Google).

pasbesoin 13y ago

The Google+ "social" product. I'm not sure of its current state, as everything is a moving target, but at the time I acquired one, the creation flow was deliberately somewhat misleading, for example not pointing out that you don't need to supply a profile photo. And/or there was one question that required a response; some googling (irony?) revealed that one could remove the answer or its public visibility after signing up. And this was after much of the initial foofera (sp?), that had already caused Google to scale back some of its demands for/during the sign up flow, IIRC. Plus had/has a lot going for it. Then, they tried to cram it (and "true names", etc.) down our throat. Opt-in. Carrot first, not stick. -- P.S. Let me put it this way: I want the ability to choose for myself and entirely what aspects of a "Google profile" I make public. Separately, I'll also add that as Google has gobbled up more and more popular products, I've become increasingly leery of a single profile that tracks and analyzes me across all of them and their varied and diverse functionality. I'm not doing anything particularly nefarious. But when the price Amazon charges me depends on a profile, and my insurance rate or ability to get insurance may depend on another profile and "social graph", etc., etc... And also on principle and for some sense of privacy and peace of mind (however incomplete)... Monocultures are subject to disease and corruption. One analogy that I might extent to online cultures. I don't want all my eggs in one basket -- especially when it's not even by my choice.

tiziano88 13y ago
You do realize that YouTube is still owned by Google, and therefore if they wanted to consider your profiles as one, they probably can already? My guess it's that they're trying (more or less successfully) to reduce the confusion, by not letting users sign up several times for all their products (which in the end is only one product -- Google).