Google Introduces Facebook Competitor, Emphasizing Privacy

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/29/technology/29google.html?_r=1

by rakkhi • 15 years ago

162 61 15 years ago

brudgers2• 15 years ago

>"Mr. Gundotra and Mr. Horowitz said that knowing more about individual Google users will improve all Google products, including ads, search, YouTube and maps, because Google will learn what people like and eventually be able to personalize those products."

I am obviously ignorant in my belief:

    privacy != Google obtaining and storing increasingly intimate personal data

stephenr2• 15 years ago

Exactly.

Who in their right mind would use the social services of a company like this:

>"Google settled with the Federal Trade Commission over charges of deceptive privacy practices related to Buzz and agreed to 20 years of audits."

pavel_lishin4• 15 years ago

The same people who use Facebook because they

a) don't know about the privacy issues, or

b) don't care, or

c) use it to promote their business (much like Pages on Facebook.)

joebadmo2• 15 years ago

Doesn't that mean they're going to be more trustworthy than anyone else? They've got direct supervision from the federal government.

alecco• 15 years ago

They mean privacy with respect with other users. Newspeak. I hope this way of interpreting the word doesn't catch on.

contextfree4• 15 years ago

I'm sympathetic to these worries, but to play devil's advocate I wonder which kind of privacy most people actually care more about. Given the choice between having one's boss/co-workers/family/spouse learn some embarrassing secret about you, and having random strangers at a large corporation learn it, which would most people pick?

amalcon• 15 years ago

That's what I was thinking. If my options are "A company that openly ignores its users' privacy" and "A company whose core competency is data mining", I'm likely to continue with option C: Don't use either.

Being entirely fair, Google is better about the whole privacy thing. This is undeniable: barring government requests and rogue sysadmins, only algorithms look at my data. It's plausible that an algorithm will remain impartial. Google just also has a lot more information about me already. I'm hesitant to hand over any more.

pstack• 15 years ago

Even if privacy weren't a concern, I don't see the point in using either one. People have email. If I really need to talk to or share something with someone, I'll email them. Or occasionally, IM them. Or maybe even call them. Or if they're nearby, maybe go have lunch with them. I don't need to share everything every day at all times with everyone. Nobody is that interesting. Nobody is that interested. And nothing is that vital.

spodek• 15 years ago

A lot of people have posted here about alternatives that retain privacy, then others lament "who would do it? ... could a start-up succeed?"

There is an alternative -- on the horizon, anyway -- that's all about privacy. You don't have to choose between privacy from your community and privacy from a faceless corporation.

The FreedomBox project -- http://www.freedomboxfoundation.org, inspired by Eben Moglen, who helped write the GPL -- aims to create a network where users own their own data. If you've used, say, Wikipedia or a site run on Linux, you know how projects based on his vision can work in time.

It's not ready here and now, but this community can help contribute to it.

One component to FreedomBox is to replace many current "cloud-based" services which gather and store personal data with peer-to-peer versions where you own your data on your FreedomBox.

mostly_harmless• 15 years ago

well, personally I would much prefer only google having my information (and using it for google ads or whatever they use it for) than a bunch of unknown third parties.

But that is assuming that google does not pass it off also, which im not quite sure of

ltamake4• 15 years ago

Advertising your site as a "Facebook competitor" (instead of implying it) is a recipe for failure because you want people to look at your site as something completely unique rather than putting it next to Facebook immediately.

pavel_lishin4• 15 years ago

I think that's true for small startups, but for someone like Google? Presumably, nearly everyone with a gmail address will already be a user, which means that there won't be any migration hassles - "I'd join, but Timmy and Jimbo aren't on GooBook yet!"

ltamake4• 15 years ago

Apple tried to use the same philosophy: everyone has an Apple ID, so there's no migration issue. Look how that turned out.

But I understand what point you're trying to make. This will get used, but I don't see it becoming a true Facebook rival because of the network effect Facebook relies on. If users were to migrate in masses, on the other hand, Facebook would be dead within a short amount of time. Sadly, that's not going to happen anytime soon.

haberman• 15 years ago

Is Google+ being advertised that way? I see that in the news articles about Google+, but not in Google's own materials.

ltamake4• 15 years ago

That was my fault. The article gave an impression that Google was advertising it like that.

jedc• 15 years ago

Um, I think all of the Google people interviewed have gone out of their way to say it isn't a "Facebook competitor". I assume this is just a copy-editor at the NYTimes who sees it that way.

bmac272• 15 years ago

Count me as one of the folks that believes Google ought to fix search before it takes on the juggernauts of the consumer web. But that could just be the SEO in me talking.

beck5• 15 years ago

isn't a lot of the future of search potentially tied into social?

brown9-2• 15 years ago

How so? How will knowing what my friends and contacts "like" help Google not respond to my searches with content farm-ed crap?

bmac272• 15 years ago

No question. But part of why a lot of searches & recommendations are happening through social to begin with is because there are still so many algorithmic flaws in organic search. Issues that have plagued search for the better part of 15 years that are just now are starting to be addressed at a high level, I.E. content farms, differentiation between content owners & borrowers/duplicators, etc.

bergie• 15 years ago

The challenges Google Plus faces are quite apparent from the end of the article page. Right next to the link to page 2 there is:

Connect with The New York Times on Facebook.

bad_user• 15 years ago

If Google gives benefits in their search results to content websites that integrate with their own +1, I'm pretty sure that's not a problem ;-)

amanelis• 15 years ago

I definitely tried to sign up and after submitting the form on the "Keep me Posted" page, I got a 500 internal server error. Good job google

raheemm• 15 years ago

If another startup creates a social network allowing greater privacy, smaller groups, levels of social circles, then I'd gladly switch to them. But never to Google.

Clue2• 15 years ago

What if it was created by Microsoft? What about Apple?

pyre3• 15 years ago

  > What about Apple?

Customer: My friends and family found out that I was sleeping around on my wife! Apple allowed this to happen!

Steve Jobs: Just change your friends and family. Not that big of a deal.

[1] http://www.tipb.com/2009/11/20/steve-jobs-tells-ipodrip-chan...

niktech• 15 years ago

I actually own the domain NewCircles.com and was working on an idea very similar to what Google has done here (including group video chat) but with emphasis on users finding and joining NEW circles instead of just organizing existing friends into circles. Think Meetup mashed with Facebook with a dash of Chatroulette.

After this announcement I'm not sure if I should continue working on my project...

akkartik• 15 years ago

No comment on whether you should continue, but this would be a poor reason to give up.

websymphony• 15 years ago

What if the exact same service, with exact same feature set was introduced by a startup and not Google? Would we still see the same type of hostility towards that too? I don't think so.

Yes, it is correct that google harvests your information to feed you more targeted ads. But it doesn't mean that if a startup, started initially as a "do no evil" company becomes as big as google or facebook won't do the same(targeted ads).

Since all these services are free to use, easiest or maybe only possible way to make profit off them is by advertising. Since nothing comes for free, you will pay for the service by sharing your personal information. Which in turn means onus lies on you to see what is it that you want to share.

brudgers2• 15 years ago

>"What if the exact same service, with exact same feature set was introduced by a startup and not Google?"

I suspect that the New York Times would be more circumspect in their use of the word "privacy" and not employ it in such a narrow sense in their headline.

To put it another way, I agree with your argument regarding the relationship between free services and advertising. The lack of journalism in the article is more unusual, which given the huge changes in what constitutes news over the past several years, is saying a lot.

knieveltech• 15 years ago

The "keep me posted" form produces a 500 error. Not off to an auspicious start.

theycallmemorty• 15 years ago

I got a 404.

huckfinnaafb• 15 years ago

200 here

corryf• 15 years ago

When this happened to me, I noticed there was a 'en-gb' in the URL. I switched it to 'en-us' and it worked.

spaghetti• 15 years ago

Just an aside: I'm having fun imagining a single-click "move from Facebook to Google+" link going viral. I don't know if it's technically possible. But consider the people who browse while signed into Facebook. Add the ability to export your Facebook data (not 100% sure this is possible). Doesn't seem too far-fetched that Google could cobble something together. Also when I click and move everything over perhaps my friends would be informed/spammed about the move with the option to move themselves. It's "Facebook-magedon"!!

ern• 15 years ago

Does it require a public Google Profile, like Buzz now does? To me, the answer to that question would be important indicator of how much Google+ emphasizes privacy.

Google Introduces Facebook Competitor, Emphasizing Privacy

Related Stories