6 ms·

> Just who the fuck do they think they are?? They think they are Google - you know, the guys that made the Internet searchable. I'm pretty sure they know what

> Just who the fuck do they think they are?? They think they are Google - you know, the guys that made the Internet searchable. I'm pretty sure they know what they are doing. Call verification is used by many services to establish ownership of an account, and to provide a fallback mechanism that automates the recovery of an account. Google likes to automate the shit out of things. This is no different. I hear that you are angry about their policies, but I really don't hear why you are angry other than it's 'intrusive'. Are you afraid they are going to do something horrible with your phone number but not your searches? Do you have similar concern and passion for what the NSA has done? Are they related to each other?

sitharus 13y ago
> Call verification is used by many services to establish ownership of an account, and to provide a fallback mechanism that automates the recovery of an account. Google likes to automate the shit out of things. This is no different. I've been using the internet for well over a decade now. The number of services I've signed up for must be in the hundreds. I've never had to verify my identity unless a monetary transaction has been carried out, and then it's to my bank rather than the merchant. Nothing I get from Google+ needs any confirmation of my real identity.
- kordless 13y ago
  > Nothing I get from Google+ needs any confirmation of my real identity. Now we're getting to the nut of the real argument.
  - css771 13y ago
    I think the problem comes from the fact of treating Google+ like any other social network like Facebook. Google+ is supposed to be an identity layer for all of Google. The fact that they have status update posting, etc is secondary. Google would like to assign a face, name and phone number to every Google account. And why is that? For various reasons. A face and a name is very valuable for targeted ads. And a phone number associated with every Google account will help Hangouts. Maybe it will enable sending SMS from the web to any phone and also Voice users can cal from the web from their Google account. Thus, Google achieves their aim of disrupting the carriers and making the phone number irrelevant. That's just the way I see it anyway.
    - sbuk 13y ago
      If that's the case, why not be up front about it?
      - chronic25 13y ago
        Amen.
      - zer0defex 13y ago
        Because saying you're the next OpenID won't allow you to be the next social network sensation à la Facebook.
        pestaa 13y ago
        Except that OpenID is a distributed protocol, which the Internet should so obviously use for authentication, not FB/G+.
      - saraid216 13y ago
        Has Google ever gotten marketing right?
        kordless 13y ago
        Seriously. About all they do is branding.
greenyoda 13y ago
Google does not get the credit for making the Internet searchable; there were some pretty decent search engines, like AltaVista, before Google came along. Google made an incremental improvement in search algorithms and figured out how to make search very profitable.
- davidgerard 13y ago
  I think you're wrong there. I remember using the web back then. Search sucked before Google. Altavista was a bit better than what came before it, but Google really was the first search engine that was any bloody good at all. The PageRank algorithm basically cracked the search problem. Making money actually came years later. Google used the method of "get a zillion users and we'll figure out money later."
  - greenyoda 13y ago
    If I remember correctly, AltaVista had a pretty sophisticated advanced search mode where you could string together search terms with Boolean operators (and/or/not). And I'm sure that AltaVista had some kind of metric of "site quality" before PageRank came along. For example, you could judge how "important" a site is by how often people click on a search result to go there, or how big they are (number of URLs from that site in your search index). You can also rank the relevance of a search result by how closely the search terms match the text on the site. Also, as the web and search evolved, people who ran web sites figured out what they'd need to do to get found more easily by search engines. It's possible that the rise of SEO was more responsible for a better search experience than improved site ranking algorithms.
    - davidgerard 13y ago
      I vaguely recall something like a Boolean search functionality on AV, yeah. I think HotBot had one too, though they were using some other sucky algorithmic innovation that didn't actually crack the search problem. I don't think SEO really started happening until Google outlined the basic idea of PageRank - until there was something to plausibly target. At which point 1999-2000 were the years of hideous link farms. I sure remember those.
inopinatus 13y ago
Setting aside your hysterical NSA invocation. Once I give Google my phone number, it is yet another (and wholly unnecessary) place where I have to keep my phone number updated. Moreover, in the event that it changes, I have a Google verification problem. So the fact that I don't trust Google not to leak it somehow is by the by, although that is why I also disabled their "web history" tracking service. No, what really annoys me is that they, and every other service that overcollects, are creating future data management debt for me to deal with. Like I don't have enough already.
- SomeCallMeTim 13y ago
  I just give them my Google Voice number. Then I don't have an "additional number to track." Not that phone numbers need to change any more anyway. With universal portability, unless you move outside of the country, you can keep your phone # with you.
  - ams6110 13y ago
    Sometimes you want to change your phone number.
MichaelGG 13y ago
Call verification alone is pretty vulnerable. For a social network login, it might be OK. For access to all your information (which is what Google is heading towards, and is already for some people) it's not great. If someone steals your phone number, it's game over. (AFAIK if you verify via phone you can bypass 2FA, right?)

sitharus 13y ago

> Call verification is used by many services to establish ownership of an account, and to provide a fallback mechanism that automates the recovery of an account. Google likes to automate the shit out of things. This is no different. I've been using the internet for well over a decade now. The number of services I've signed up for must be in the hundreds. I've never had to verify my identity unless a monetary transaction has been carried out, and then it's to my bank rather than the merchant. Nothing I get from Google+ needs any confirmation of my real identity.

kordless 13y ago
> Nothing I get from Google+ needs any confirmation of my real identity. Now we're getting to the nut of the real argument.
- css771 13y ago
  I think the problem comes from the fact of treating Google+ like any other social network like Facebook. Google+ is supposed to be an identity layer for all of Google. The fact that they have status update posting, etc is secondary. Google would like to assign a face, name and phone number to every Google account. And why is that? For various reasons. A face and a name is very valuable for targeted ads. And a phone number associated with every Google account will help Hangouts. Maybe it will enable sending SMS from the web to any phone and also Voice users can cal from the web from their Google account. Thus, Google achieves their aim of disrupting the carriers and making the phone number irrelevant. That's just the way I see it anyway.
  - sbuk 13y ago
    If that's the case, why not be up front about it?
    - chronic25 13y ago
      Amen.
    - zer0defex 13y ago
      Because saying you're the next OpenID won't allow you to be the next social network sensation à la Facebook.
      - pestaa 13y ago
        Except that OpenID is a distributed protocol, which the Internet should so obviously use for authentication, not FB/G+.
    - saraid216 13y ago
      Has Google ever gotten marketing right?
      - kordless 13y ago
        Seriously. About all they do is branding.

greenyoda 13y ago

Google does not get the credit for making the Internet searchable; there were some pretty decent search engines, like AltaVista, before Google came along. Google made an incremental improvement in search algorithms and figured out how to make search very profitable.

davidgerard 13y ago
I think you're wrong there. I remember using the web back then. Search sucked before Google. Altavista was a bit better than what came before it, but Google really was the first search engine that was any bloody good at all. The PageRank algorithm basically cracked the search problem. Making money actually came years later. Google used the method of "get a zillion users and we'll figure out money later."
- greenyoda 13y ago
  If I remember correctly, AltaVista had a pretty sophisticated advanced search mode where you could string together search terms with Boolean operators (and/or/not). And I'm sure that AltaVista had some kind of metric of "site quality" before PageRank came along. For example, you could judge how "important" a site is by how often people click on a search result to go there, or how big they are (number of URLs from that site in your search index). You can also rank the relevance of a search result by how closely the search terms match the text on the site. Also, as the web and search evolved, people who ran web sites figured out what they'd need to do to get found more easily by search engines. It's possible that the rise of SEO was more responsible for a better search experience than improved site ranking algorithms.
  - davidgerard 13y ago
    I vaguely recall something like a Boolean search functionality on AV, yeah. I think HotBot had one too, though they were using some other sucky algorithmic innovation that didn't actually crack the search problem. I don't think SEO really started happening until Google outlined the basic idea of PageRank - until there was something to plausibly target. At which point 1999-2000 were the years of hideous link farms. I sure remember those.

inopinatus 13y ago

Setting aside your hysterical NSA invocation. Once I give Google my phone number, it is yet another (and wholly unnecessary) place where I have to keep my phone number updated. Moreover, in the event that it changes, I have a Google verification problem. So the fact that I don't trust Google not to leak it somehow is by the by, although that is why I also disabled their "web history" tracking service. No, what really annoys me is that they, and every other service that overcollects, are creating future data management debt for me to deal with. Like I don't have enough already.

SomeCallMeTim 13y ago
I just give them my Google Voice number. Then I don't have an "additional number to track." Not that phone numbers need to change any more anyway. With universal portability, unless you move outside of the country, you can keep your phone # with you.
- ams6110 13y ago
  Sometimes you want to change your phone number.

MichaelGG 13y ago

Call verification alone is pretty vulnerable. For a social network login, it might be OK. For access to all your information (which is what Google is heading towards, and is already for some people) it's not great. If someone steals your phone number, it's game over. (AFAIK if you verify via phone you can bypass 2FA, right?)