8 ms·

Here's how it works. The techies create something. The legals come along and say, OK, to release that in the wild it needs some T&Cs that cover our arses for ev

Here's how it works. The techies create something. The legals come along and say, OK, to release that in the wild it needs some T&Cs that cover our arses for everything and then some, because people keep sueing us. In practice, would Google ever dare invoke this on a large scale? No, you know that. Yes, there should be some transparent process that is undertaken if yours were revoked, but Google only like stuff that scales, manual processes like that don't. And really, if the ability to revoke your URL at any time wasn't in the T&Cs, do you really think it would make any difference to the revoke rate? Sure, nobody in their right mind would depend on such a URL sticking around, but this post isn't "Why I won't get a Google+ Custom URL", it's "Why I won't use a Google+ Custom URL as the primary mechanism to link to myself online". I don't see much argument against just claiming one, if you're already a g+ user.

pseudometa 13y ago
You forgot the part where the business guys come in and ask why they aren't making money off this and decide to either cancel the service or start charging for it.
- jamesbritt 13y ago
  The claim-page I saw says that at some point they may charge for it. I expect they will, if they ever think people have come to rely on it. I took my name URL but have no plans to publicize it. I don't own it.
- jotm 13y ago
  Google Reader, never forget :-)
hugi 13y ago
Indeed. A huge corporation would never do anything unethical for money.
- AYBABTME 13y ago
  It's not about ethics, it would just not make very much sense to charge people for their G+ handle when: - They struggle to get adoption from users. - They offer all these other, more essential/complex, services for 'free'(Gmail/Search/Docs/Calendar/Android). - Anybody can turn around and use the long form, unless your G+ is part of your marketing and as such, you use it as part of a business. Really, I think they only put that condition there so they can eventually monetize handles that are used by other Big Corp.
cliffbean 13y ago
As a quick reality check, we're talking about boring old URL rewriting here. "Cool new invention mangled by legal paranoia" is a solid story, but other stories would probably fit the circumstances better.
dsr_ 13y ago
Me in 1993: Yeah, but seriously, nobody is going to start charging for domain names. Writing a hundred bytes in your named.conf? What would you charge, ten cents? Doesn't make sense. And everybody swaps secondary service with everybody else, and your upstream includes it at no extra charge.
- Hellenion 13y ago
  Where can I read more about this seemingly magical era? I'm so young that it sounds like a faerietale.
  - kordless 13y ago
    Google 'NSF NSI contract 1993'. Ended up being worth North of $20B in about 7 years.
  - jmduke 13y ago
    It's hardly a canonical source, but very much on the 'seemingly magical' side of things -- there's a Twitter account devoted to crawling old boards and pages and tweeting interesting snippets. https://twitter.com/wwwtxt https://twitter.com/wwwtxt Incredibly wonderful -- and very surreal. It's bizarre to think that only twenty years ago, the Internet was an entirely different culture.
  - dpapathanasiou 13y ago
    In 1994, someone at Wired magazine (which was only in its 2nd year of existence) registered mcdonalds.com to see what would happen: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/mcdonalds_pr.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/mcdonalds_pr.html
- ivanbrussik 13y ago
  god were you wrong back then!
- danellis 13y ago
  > ten cents And they started charging $70, IIRC!
darklajid 13y ago
So, we're talking Google here. IF your assessment is true, then Google is certainly reigned by lawyers, not engineers. Point taken.
- deong 13y ago
  Reigned? Based on the inclusion of one cover-your-ass clause that has so far never been exercised in the terms and conditions of one product? If this is your idea of sufficient evidence that a company is run by lawyers, I'd challenge you to find a single company that isn't. I don't believe I've ever seen an agreement that didn't say that the company could change the terms at any time and that continued usage constituted acceptance of the new terms. All of those agreements implicitly allow exactly what Google has explicitly allowed for.
viraptor 13y ago
> In practice, would Google ever dare invoke this on a large scale? Twitter has already done that on a number of primary usernames, rather than just vanity urls. Did you expect them to do that? Do you think Google is better?

pseudometa 13y ago

You forgot the part where the business guys come in and ask why they aren't making money off this and decide to either cancel the service or start charging for it.

jamesbritt 13y ago
The claim-page I saw says that at some point they may charge for it. I expect they will, if they ever think people have come to rely on it. I took my name URL but have no plans to publicize it. I don't own it.
jotm 13y ago
Google Reader, never forget :-)

hugi 13y ago

Indeed. A huge corporation would never do anything unethical for money.

AYBABTME 13y ago
It's not about ethics, it would just not make very much sense to charge people for their G+ handle when: - They struggle to get adoption from users. - They offer all these other, more essential/complex, services for 'free'(Gmail/Search/Docs/Calendar/Android). - Anybody can turn around and use the long form, unless your G+ is part of your marketing and as such, you use it as part of a business. Really, I think they only put that condition there so they can eventually monetize handles that are used by other Big Corp.

cliffbean 13y ago

As a quick reality check, we're talking about boring old URL rewriting here. "Cool new invention mangled by legal paranoia" is a solid story, but other stories would probably fit the circumstances better.

dsr_ 13y ago

Me in 1993: Yeah, but seriously, nobody is going to start charging for domain names. Writing a hundred bytes in your named.conf? What would you charge, ten cents? Doesn't make sense. And everybody swaps secondary service with everybody else, and your upstream includes it at no extra charge.

Hellenion 13y ago
Where can I read more about this seemingly magical era? I'm so young that it sounds like a faerietale.
- kordless 13y ago
  Google 'NSF NSI contract 1993'. Ended up being worth North of $20B in about 7 years.
- jmduke 13y ago
  It's hardly a canonical source, but very much on the 'seemingly magical' side of things -- there's a Twitter account devoted to crawling old boards and pages and tweeting interesting snippets. https://twitter.com/wwwtxt https://twitter.com/wwwtxt Incredibly wonderful -- and very surreal. It's bizarre to think that only twenty years ago, the Internet was an entirely different culture.
- dpapathanasiou 13y ago
  In 1994, someone at Wired magazine (which was only in its 2nd year of existence) registered mcdonalds.com to see what would happen: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/mcdonalds_pr.html http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.10/mcdonalds_pr.html
ivanbrussik 13y ago
god were you wrong back then!
danellis 13y ago
> ten cents And they started charging $70, IIRC!

darklajid 13y ago

So, we're talking Google here. IF your assessment is true, then Google is certainly reigned by lawyers, not engineers. Point taken.

deong 13y ago
Reigned? Based on the inclusion of one cover-your-ass clause that has so far never been exercised in the terms and conditions of one product? If this is your idea of sufficient evidence that a company is run by lawyers, I'd challenge you to find a single company that isn't. I don't believe I've ever seen an agreement that didn't say that the company could change the terms at any time and that continued usage constituted acceptance of the new terms. All of those agreements implicitly allow exactly what Google has explicitly allowed for.

viraptor 13y ago

> In practice, would Google ever dare invoke this on a large scale? Twitter has already done that on a number of primary usernames, rather than just vanity urls. Did you expect them to do that? Do you think Google is better?