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You can get grumpy about the hyperbolic language, but this defense of Google -- and most others I'm seeing here -- is rather missing what those of us who are in

You can get grumpy about the hyperbolic language, but this defense of Google -- and most others I'm seeing here -- is rather missing what those of us who are increasingly exasperated with Big G are annoyed about. Let's try it without the cursing, shall we? Google has taken a collection of services that are not functionally related -- a search engine, a mapping engine, a hosted mail service, a social network, a video sharing site, a web-based document editing system with cloud storage, and more -- and made the following unilateral decisions: (1) The default is to have one Google account that links you to all services. (2) You are strongly encouraged to use your real name for that account. (3) The default for linking services together is opt-out rather than opt-in. Google puts a lot of effort into making you have one account across all of Google. The signal difference between them and, well, everyone else (with the possible exception of Facebook) is that it's increasingly difficult to not be part of the Google ecosystem. Yes, the median HN reader can come up with a laundry list of other services to replace everything Google, but most users can't and even most technically competent users probably aren't going to. The upshot of the three principles above is that in practice, anyone with a Google Account -- which is at this point probably a substantial percentage of the world population -- has a very good chance of being able to send email to you if they have no other information but your real name. Is that the end of privacy as we know it? Of course not. But do you really, really think that only crazy weirdo Apple users would possibly find it just a touch troubling that Google thinks it's okay for this to be the default? Do you really think it's insane for me to think that Google should perhaps consider that their users might deserve privacy from both other Google users and Google itself, as opposed to just the "privacy" granted by better spam blocking algorithms and SSL?

thrownaway2424 13y ago
If you already have a Google+ account, which is a requirement to portray yourself as a victim of this feature, it's already possible for anyone else with a Google+ account to annoy you by sharing stuff directly with you, which with the default notification settings in Google+ will cause you to get an email. I don't see how today's feature is worse. Now, I see the opposite of what you see. Because my gmail address consist of just my name, and my name is common, I _already_ get loads and loads of mail destined for other people with my name. I find this annoying and I have no way to stop it. With this new feature, at least people who are using Gmail to compose their message will have a better chance of finding the right person, because the contacts in the composer show the profile picture from Google+. That means I will get less of this mail. It also means that the mail I do get will go to the "Social" tab of my Gmail inbox, which I don't even display by default, so it will be out of my face entirely. And, finally, I have a way to retaliate, because deleting their messages means those misguided people can never contact me via Google+ again. Nice. As for your other points I don't think they are even worth addressing. You aren't seriously proposing that Google should maintain separate account systems for Gmail, Google search, Google maps, Google+, Youtube, Docs and Drive, and every other product, are you? Can't you imaging the password maintenance/hijacking/support nightmare that would ensue?

thrownaway2424 13y ago

If you already have a Google+ account, which is a requirement to portray yourself as a victim of this feature, it's already possible for anyone else with a Google+ account to annoy you by sharing stuff directly with you, which with the default notification settings in Google+ will cause you to get an email. I don't see how today's feature is worse. Now, I see the opposite of what you see. Because my gmail address consist of just my name, and my name is common, I _already_ get loads and loads of mail destined for other people with my name. I find this annoying and I have no way to stop it. With this new feature, at least people who are using Gmail to compose their message will have a better chance of finding the right person, because the contacts in the composer show the profile picture from Google+. That means I will get less of this mail. It also means that the mail I do get will go to the "Social" tab of my Gmail inbox, which I don't even display by default, so it will be out of my face entirely. And, finally, I have a way to retaliate, because deleting their messages means those misguided people can never contact me via Google+ again. Nice. As for your other points I don't think they are even worth addressing. You aren't seriously proposing that Google should maintain separate account systems for Gmail, Google search, Google maps, Google+, Youtube, Docs and Drive, and every other product, are you? Can't you imaging the password maintenance/hijacking/support nightmare that would ensue?