
That's a fun trick Google - tenpoundhammer
http://impressmyself.co/post/68075785820/thats-a-fun-trick-google
======
Pxtl
Google never should've tried to be "polite" about G+. It's only bit them in
the ass and become a repeatedly-broken promise.

The intent here is reasonable: They have dozens of services with dozens of
comment engines and user-systems and they need to consolidate that crap into
something more coherent. Picasa/YouTube do functionally similar services but
one uses video and one uses pictures, so it makes sense for Google to try to
make their common-ground more common.

The problem is that fundamentally, G+ was too opinionated and Google
leadership was too polite. The relationship should've been the other way
around - G+ needed to be more flexible (better support for
anonymous/pseudonymous posting) while Google should've moved decisively
instead of soft-peddling it so many times and breaking promises to the users
that implied that they had a _choice_ about these changes. You can't not-have
Plus.

What they should've offered is "I don't want a Plus homepage" and "I don't
want to participate in Circles" which is an agreement they could have
honoured.

~~~
cLeEOGPw
That would be not a problem if they didn't enforce to be REAL id. Although as
I changed my first and second names to random characters, they at first
suspended my account "until I fix it", but after some time removed suspension
and now I am someone whose name starts with small letter, than capital, then
some more random letters and few numbers.

~~~
Pxtl
Can't you create a Page to use as a pseudonym? I admit the whole UI for Pages
is clumsy and inconsistent, but the feature exists. You can wrap your Real ID
with a layer of anonymity using a Page, as is the default approach for YouTube
(allowing YouTube commenters to keep their old handles).

But in general, it seems clumsy and not very well thought-out or designed. A
feature meant for allowing company websites is hacked into pseudonyms.

------
nfoz
While you're complaining about Google, how about you fix your website to stop
giving away your viewers' data to third-party advertising/technology
companies? A cursory glance at the source reveals:

\- tumblr.com

\- googleapis.com

\- netdna.bootstrapcdn.com

\- ogp.me

\- google-analytics.com

\- yimg.com

\- nol.yahoo.com

Think you could tone that down?

~~~
chadwickthebold
How does using CDNs to load jQuery, font awesome, and some google fonts give
away viewer data to third parties? I'm not sure about the tumblr stuff but I
don't see how loading these scripts is malicious...

~~~
minimalist
It is no different than linking to any third-party / external resource.
Specifically, profiling information is delivered across the referrer and user-
agent to name a few.

There is a more complete discussion on the network security stackexchange
group[0].

[0] [http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/38415/privacy-
ri...](http://security.stackexchange.com/questions/38415/privacy-risk-in-
using-google-apis)

------
GeorgeOrr
And of course, outraged and harmed by this you proceeded to stop using Google
services. They are paying for it by acting in a way you find distasteful, so
of course you will show them by no longer using their services.

Or ... are you using their services while moaning about it? No, I'm sure you
wouldn't do that.

~~~
jarrett
I've never understood this condescension and self-righteousness towards those
who complain about a service yet still use the service. It's as if complaining
about a business you patronize is childish or petty.

Why does anyone think that? It's often economically rational for a customer to
say "I'd like to continue using your product/service, but I have a specific
complaint about it."[1] That's what all these posts about Google+ are doing.

It's not like anyone's shouting "We need to pass laws against this, right
now!" Nobody is questioning Google's legal and moral right to force Google+ on
us. Rather, people are saying it's a poor choice and Google's part, and it
annoys customers.

[1] These issues are discussed in Exit, Voice, and Loyalty:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty)

The basic idea is that an aggrieved consumer can either take their business
elsewhere, which is termed "exit," or try to change the company's behavior
through things like the OP's blog post, which is termed "voice." Customers
sometimes choose voice as their first recourse, and if things get worse or
don't improve, the customers sometimes exit.

~~~
GeorgeOrr
Re-read the original article. When someone writes with such extreme language
about a transaction they've apparently gotten value out of - then fail to even
mention the idea of exit, then I suppose my response will let a little
condescension and self-righteousness seep through.

Your inability to understand that is just not relevant.

~~~
enraged_camel
The reason you are being downvoted to oblivion (as you should be) is that your
entire argument is a red herring.

Whether the author continues to use Google services is utterly and completely
irrelevant. The point of contention here is the sleazy way Google re-activates
a service for them after they have explicitly disabled it. If your answer to
this dilemma is to stop using Google services altogether, then I'm sorry but
you just lost all credibility and will not be taken seriously.

~~~
tsaoutourpants
Why? I try to use Google services as little as possible because I feel like
they don't respect my privacy. I think it's reasonable that people who bitch
and moan about Google but refuse to seek alternatives (they're out there!) are
a part of the problem, not a part of the solution.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>I think it's reasonable that people who bitch and moan about Google but
refuse to seek alternatives (they're out there!) are a part of the problem,
not a part of the solution.

Only if you think blaming the victim is reasonable.

Look, everyone knows that alternatives to Google exist. The problem here is
that Google has pulled a massive bait and switch on its entire userbase. They
started as a company that put its users first, and over time turned into one
that tries to extract as much money from users as possible. And while it is
possible to switch to other services, for a lot of people and companies this
involves a significant time investment as well as an upheaval of processes and
resources.

Heck, as a single individual, my Gmail address is listed in at least 25
different locations. Remembering what those are and then changing them alone
would take me hours. And then there's static documents with my email address
on them - resumes, cover letters, business letters, business cards, and more.
Finally, there is the question of whether my new email provider offers
integrated solutions for instant messaging, content sharing and collaboration,
calendar, and more.

Basically, Google is a monopoly -- not in the sense of market-share but rather
in terms of the completeness of their offering, and they are abusing the shit
out of this. That's what's making people angry, and they have every right to
be angry.

~~~
tsaoutourpants
Blaming the victim who repeatedly returns to his or her tormentor despite
knowing better?

Yes.

------
andywood
This has been the very essence of Google for the past two years. Forcefully
assimilating existing services, where users already had data, into G+,
changing functionality and terms, and generally leaving users to feel insecure
about how privacy and access to their long-held data might or might not
change.

What a far cry from '99-'03 Google, which used to release clever and
surprising new data-browsing tools, each with a singular purpose, that just
worked.

~~~
VikingCoder
...and none of them talked to each other at all.

Yeah, I happen to like the integrated Google. When I get GMail confirming a
flight, it automatically shows up in my Google Now. I can search for it with
"When is my next flight?" I can search my Docs and Gmail both at once.

I happen like how far Google has gotten from those old, random, completely
non-integrated days.

~~~
Pxtl
Exactly. When Google bought all these companies, it was disappointing to see
them sitting as isolated buckets. I mean, did people thing these purchases
were done as a Pokemon game? "Yay, Google got all 151 verticals!". How long
did they let Blogger sit as a wasteland of spam?

Now? Now Blogger is Picasa for prose, and Picasa is Youtube for still images,
and your Plus homepage is your central hub for all the discussion happening on
those services. Obviously, Plus has problems, and lots of them. It's far too
opinionated for something that's being used as a general-purpose comment-
engine. Plus is a good Facebook, but it's a piss-poor Disqus, and Google is
using it as Disqus.

But the overall strategy of consolidation? Long overdue.

Google is finally turning their holdings into a single impressive platform
instead of a balkanized mess of isolated services.

I don't like the privacy implications, of course. But that's always been
Google's business model ever since they launched GMail - they give you
something awesome for free and in exchange they get to spy on you to provide
targeted ads.

~~~
indubitably
Well, Gmail isn't all that free, in practice. I imagine a lot of the people
around here have enough email to have capitulated to Gmail's inevitable
demands for cash. I did.

~~~
VikingCoder
I've never even bothered to delete anything, and I'm only 19% full. I also
consider myself a HEAVY Docs user.

------
joshfraser
Google gives us all a lot of amazing technology completely free of charge. I
use their search engine, email client and browser every day and for me their
products are second to none. Google is one of the few companies that is really
investing in the future with things like Google Glass and self driving cars.
Personally, I'm okay with a few ads if that's what it takes for them to keep
innovating and making the world a more interesting place.

That said, all these attempts to strong arm people into using Google Plus are
really getting old.

~~~
Kequc
It is because Google + is their new identity service. Everything requires it,
instead of a gmail account. Google + is your Google identity. At the same time
it is also a social platform because so what? Don't use it. Or, use it since
it's really really useful.

The amount of rage people express about being "forced" to use Google + is as
perplexing to Google as it is to me. It's an identity service.

You don't need to have a gmail account to use Google's services anymore you
just need a Google identity. That's what Google + is. I don't know how many
times I can say it but so far it seems like a lot of times. People want to
rage.

~~~
antoko
Right, but the confusion is that both the identity service and their social
network are called Google+. So it is hardly surprising that people get
confused when they call two supposedly distinct services by the same name. Why
not just call the identity service Google Account and then all the perception
problems go away. Seems like a huge PR blunder. But then I'm not actually sure
how much google really care about this, I think the rage about it is amplified
in our HN crowd. Most google customers probably don't notice and of the ones
that do the majority likely don't care.

~~~
Kequc
I agree to a certain extent. But Google + and the identity service are so
closely linked that I am having trouble imagining how they could have called
it Google Account since everyone would be wondering what they need Google +
for. Which is happening anyway but people haven't figured out the part where
Google + is your Google identity yet. Even on, or especially on HN/Youtube.

The ability to comment and talk about stuff is going to permeate all of
Google's services. I don't really see how else they could do it.

Maybe if they didn't force you to use your real name then everyone wouldn't be
having freak outs?

~~~
gurkendoktor
But Google has not just started using G+ accounts for YT comments, they have
mixed G+ _shares_ with YT comments. Now much of what I see below YT videos are
G+ shares along the lines of, "hey check out this cool video". That's actually
_less_ informative than the average YT comment.

------
ams6110
Funny... a year ago I would have said Chrome[ium] had Firefox on the ropes.
Now it's looking like Firefox has the upper hand on protecting privacy. And I
am surprised to find myself thinking that even IE is probably preferable.

~~~
gbl08ma
This has nothing to do with what browser is used. The user is being redirected
to the login page to accept some new ToS, instead of being automatically
logged in. This would happen with any browser that supports redirects and
cookies, and if for some reason the redirect didn't work, they'd just politely
ask you to click on a certain link to continue (and if cookies are disabled,
auto-login would not work).

~~~
NotOscarWilde
If I understand the link's post correctly, the user is being logged out of his
Google Chrome profile (which is used to save your browsing data across
devices) and being redirected to the login page to accept some new ToS.
Accepting that ToS for the browser setting set up his Google+ profile, it
seems.

As far as I know, no other browser (IE,Firefox,Safari) has a social network
(and very few actually nudge you into logging in to some profile when using
it) and so this has a lot to do with what browser is used.

The author would likely not get this behaviour on any other browser (I'm on
Firefox, I use some of Google's services and my Google+ account is still
disabled), which is another reason to believe this has a lot to do with what
browser is used.

------
ricardobeat
Yesterday I was editing a spreadsheet on Google Docs and pressed Cmd+C to copy
some text. A window popped up saying "You need to install the Google Drive app
to enable copy & paste functionality". Good one.

~~~
evilmushroom
You do realize that was for special pastes, right? Cells + functions, drawings
etc

~~~
ricardobeat
It was a plain text field containing a URL, using Chrome.

~~~
evandena
Just a hunch, but maybe you had the cell selected and tried to copy that,
instead of selecting the text within the cell?

~~~
Pxtl
... that's not really better. Requiring the desktop installation of Drive for
trivial cases like that means that the web-application isn't really a web-
application, but rather a desktop application that uses the browser as a GUI.

~~~
aiiane
Actually, that's due to Drive trying to support the system clipboard
intelligently (e.g. such that if you pasted into MS Office, you'd actually get
a table/cell structure, rather than just text). Browser APIs don't provide
support for that level of copy-paste, so it has to be worked around.

Plain text copy and paste works fine without.

------
macNchz
Just last week I started using Firefox as my main browser (after three years
of using Chrome), mostly due to "Sign in to Chrome" annoyances.

At one point I inadvertently signed into Chrome with my Google apps account,
which then stored a lot more personal data in the cloud than I'd ever
intended. When I noticed this sometime later, I tried to disconnect my account
from Chrome—which is apparently not possible for a Google apps account—so the
only fix was to delete the Chrome account and to lose my browser history and
saved passwords...which I did, right before opening Firefox.

~~~
xauronx
I love being signed into Chrome. If I looked something up on my phone while I
was walking into work, I can quickly open it in a tab on my desktop. If I
searched for a specific coffee shop on my desktop and only remember a couple
of letters in the name later, chrome on my phone auto-completes. Among many
other sweet features, I think it's worth just... signing in.

~~~
kibwen
Firefox does this as well, and it doesn't require an account to do so. It also
encrypts your personal data in the client, and allows you to set up your own
sync server so that even your encrypted data never touches their servers if
you don't want it to.

------
res0nat0r
> Thanks Google! What a fun way to say, “I hope we can squeeze every dime
> possible out of your tiny little life. “

Google should be ashamed for trying to pay for their millions of dollars of
infrastructure?

~~~
lazyjones
> _Google should be ashamed for trying to pay for their millions of dollars of
> infrastructure?_

"Google's 2013 third quarter profits were nearly $15 billion; that profit is
the difference between how much our privacy is worth and the cost of the
services we receive in exchange for it. " (Bruce Schneier =>
[https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/11/surveillance_...](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/11/surveillance_as_1.html))

~~~
twoodfin
That's a little much. Google could still make a hell of a lot of money with
completely untargeted contextual ads, which don't require me to trade any
"privacy" at all.

~~~
kylnew
I actually don't get this mentality. You are saying you would prefer to
receive irrelevant ads? To me the worst thing about advertising is its lack of
relevance most of the time. When ads are targeted I at least feel like I'm
getting offered things that appeal to my tastes. I find that much less
bothersome.

~~~
WalterBright
I recently bought a faucet from an online plumbing company. I now find my
browsing bombarded with ads for the same kitchen faucet, from that same
company.

How many kitchens do they think I have?

~~~
dudus
Of course this is a technology shortcoming. It doesn't mean that targeted ads
are inferior, they are just not perfect.

The idea is that you get targeted ads for things you are looking for. Not
always the recommendation is perfect, that is bad for you, Google, Publishers
and Advertisers. If you can fix that you might be into something big.

------
venomsnake
Dear google, please add a subscription option to your services - lets say 2USD
monthly. In return - no tracking, no forcing and no data collection and
totally turned off safe search - I have survived goatse, you have nothing to
scare me with. I would gladly pay them and you probably make less from me in
our current relationship. Thanks.

~~~
tvladeck
Just as a quick reality check: Google has about 300m MAUs [0] and for their
last quarter made 14.8b in revenue [1], which with quick-and-dirty math leads
to about $14.6/user/month

[0] [http://marketingland.com/google-hits-300-million-active-
mont...](http://marketingland.com/google-hits-300-million-active-monthly-in-
stream-users-540-million-across-google-63354)

[1]
[https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AGOOG&fstype=ii&ei=...](https://www.google.com/finance?q=NASDAQ%3AGOOG&fstype=ii&ei=sJmTUqjvHIKSiQLSVw)

~~~
mjhagen
$15/m for an actual Google+ service where I'm guaranteed that I'm not being
tracked, and I'd get no ads and all my personal data is completely safe and
encrypted doesn't sound that bad.

------
pouzy
It feels like the upper management at Google switched from being a tech-
oriented company to a money oriented company. It's always been an ad agency,
but the products used to be great. Now I have a hard time using their
products, and EVERY SINGLE product I'mn still using is from lesser quality
than 2 years ago.

And google+ is not helping.

------
vraj5
While I hate this tactic of pushing monetization more obviously down our
throats, what real option do they have? Amazon has slowly been eating their
lunch in terms of product sales (heck, they even piggy back off of Google Ads
and rake higher margins) and people are willingly telling Facebook what they
like and dislike, so it seems that the end is nigh for advertiser spend
primarily going to Google Search based ads. In this case, the pie of
"eyeballs" getting bigger, advertiser spend isn't rising commensurately, and
neither Google Search's share (they're both still rising, hence Google's
recent stock boom). I'm not saying I have an answer, but nobody is really
providing a viable alternative for them.

------
mkaziz
I'm not a fan of post-2011 Google.

~~~
FrankenPC
Ultimate power corrupts ultimately. Works every time.

------
wellboy
And with Google and Facebook screwing over their users with dark patterns,
their demise was all set.

They will soon realize by finding it hard to recruit talent. Google and
Facebook used to be the best companies to work at, nowadays you're starting to
get looked at strangely if you work there.

What, you've been part of the NSA thing? What, did you work on G+? LOL was it
you who redesigned youtube comments?

2 new horsemen in tech pls.

------
duked
I'm still using gmail but I fear that one day they will do the same thing with
new TOS on gmail. This day I even get prompted to create a g+ account every
time I login.

Is there an alternative, where I would have 15GB and the option to use my own
domain. I'll happily pay to avoid creating a g+ account and have decent space
for my emails without managing the security.

~~~
masnick
Yep! FastMail is great.
[http://www.maxmasnick.com/2013/07/19/fastmail/](http://www.maxmasnick.com/2013/07/19/fastmail/)

~~~
duked
Man thank you so much ! I didn't know they offered the option to use your own
domain name. I will definitely give it a try since it's very affordable
($40/year in my case).

~~~
masnick
No problem! Hopefully you like it. So far I have nothing but good things to
say about FastMail. They just had a big storage bump for all the different
plans, which helps a ton.

------
ywyrd
"If they can't even get search right, who would trust them with anything
more?"

------
shmerl
Google created a dummy G+ account for my Youtube user recently. I had hard
time reverting that, and just found a way to unlink Youtube from that G+ page.
When I try to delete that G+ page, it warns me that it would nuke my
corresponding Google Talk service (which I don't want to lose). This is very
annoying. Is there a clean way to revert all this G+ nonsense without
disturbing other services?

------
mehSoWhat
...which is why "logging into _YOUR BROWSER_ " is the most retarded
abomination ever conceived in the history of internet privacy.

~~~
dudus
Strangely everyone is fine with logging in your cellphone which is even more
broad.

I log with my Google Account and I can use all Google Services without logging
in, that's great, why can't we have that on the Desktop?

~~~
mavhc
You can if your desktop is ChromeOS

------
pearjuice
So without reading the terms of agreement bad stuff happens and then you
complain? They told you it would happen yet you agreed. If you are not happy
with those "tricks", then don't agree with the terms of agreement which you
are supposed to READ before you agree with them.

Or do you sign any contract presented to you without hesitation?

------
robert-wallis
Maybe change your perspective. Google is trying to integrate everything into
one Google account.

Imagine if Github created the Wiki product with a separate login, and then
wanted to integrated Wikis into the rest of Github, but then lots of Wiki
haters got mad because they wanted the old Github and didn't want to sign-up
for all that Wiki stuff.

The point is, if you sign up for Google, you get Drive, Docs, Spreadsheets,
YouTube, and G+. They are different services that are all part of having a
Google account.

The real thing you should be complaining about is that G+ notifications are
annoying, and you just want to turn it off because you don't use G+.

That would be like if every time you logged into Amazon.com to watch an
instant movie you got notifications from S3 saying your bill for the month is
$0.00, or your workmate you gave access to your EC2 account just bought a new
TV.

It's the notifications that are problem, not the integration.

------
rjohnk
Here's one thing holding me back from G+: Our gmail account is one that my
wife and I share. It's our family email address. Call me old-fashioned, but
the profile is neither a him nor her, and it isn't one person

The day they require G+ will be the day I transfer to Fastmail permanently.

------
mzs
Where's the beef? How have the terms of picasa changed? (That's a no-cost
downloadable Mac and Windows software right?) Also what did s/he get
notifications about? Does s/he mean some emails about ToS changes?

------
anoncow
I really like the pricing of Google Apps. Flexible and not very costly. I wish
they had kept free email with single user Google apps accounts (a requirement
for appengine custom domains) though. Even something with a 10 mb inbox would
have worked.

Google has played the long waiting game and has given users some excellent
services for free(which has benefitted Google too). Now that the services are
mature, they have to make sure that these services are self sufficient.

------
methodin
We have been in the age of entitlement for quite a while. I don't quite
understand why more people just don't do instead of talking about doing. We
all have things that we hate and annoy us but most deal with the issue and
carry on. I feel that it is wrong that something gains notoriety simply
because it is agreeable to a large consensus of people who feel the same way.
What is the merit?

------
TrainedMonkey
I think it is silly how every new feature or slight bug introduced by Google
is viewed from negative standpoint. I guess Google is new Misro$oft.

But really, I wonder how many of those things are really to increase number of
G+ users (I suspect quite a few), and how many are simple setting resets
because of a bug/move to a new system with different setting encoding.

------
drivingmenuts
They can tie all this stuff together all they want -- it doesn't really matter
to me. I use GMail and that's about it. I was on G+ for a bit - it's
interesting - but I have too much time invested in Facebook to switch.

So, go ahead, change the ToS, Google. Things being what they are, I can still
get thru the day without the pain of switching.

------
IgorPartola
Can someone explain to my why creating a blank profile with Google Plus and
not using it is so much worse than not creating a profile? It's not like you
are sharing any more information with Google through the G+ UI vs GMail, or am
I missing something crucial?

~~~
aryastark
Presumably, you _are_ using the G+ profile. Otherwise, we wouldn't be having
this discussion.

What your blank G+ profile will do is connect your YouTube video views, with
your Google Map searches, Google searches, GMail, and whatever else you do. If
you log in to G+ on a cell phone in NYC, they will know it. Then you take your
cell phone back home to SF, they will know that G+ profile was logged in from
NYC and SF.

You're sharing the fact that you're the _same_ person doing all these
activities across various services, various locations, various times, various
devices, and with various people.

~~~
IgorPartola
I guess that implies that Google did not know this before. If you are logged
into GMail, are you not logged into Maps at the same time?

Also, I believe you do not have to be logged into Maps on your mobile phone to
use it.

Lastly, what are we worried about here? The NSA can figure out how to do a
join between all the different databases Google has to uniquely identify you
and Google will not ask you for consent on that. What Google is trying to do
is combine the info from various services to get better targeted ads. Is that
exactly a tragedy or an invasion of privacy? At the end of the day, no matter
how they collect it, store it, organize it, or analyze it, you end up
voluntarily giving them all the information. Don't want to do that? Sign out
of YouTube.

------
tjbiddle
I'm assuming it must still be more beneficial to Google to continue to press
G+ on it's users than cease doing so, because even with all of the bad
publicity they receive for it - they continue forward. Bummer.

------
gohrt
Isn't there far more coherent rants than this one that we can use as the
launchpoint for today's Google+ 2-Minute Hate?

------
libria
Perhaps the new TOS includes reactivation of a disabled G+ account. Anyone
else seen them? The article is light on details.

------
byjove
This has very little to do with logging in with Chromium. Picasa was the first
service to integrate with G+, they then allowed high resolution picture
hosting and the like. This also has nothing to do with "maximizing profits"
(at least not directly) it has more to do with phasing out Picasa web albums
for G+ photos.

And if I remember correctly the new terms prompt does specifically mention G+
integration, and it has a 'dont accept' option.

------
ananth99
LOL.

