Tag Archives: Google+ negatives
Google+: How Paranoid Are You About Privacy?
Posted on 21. Jul, 2011 by Wolfgang Gruener. 
1 Comments
Editor’s note: this article originally appeared on our partnership site ConceivablyTech.
Summary, response, follow up and criticism – We recently ran an article in which we offered an opinion, not just Kurt’s opinion, but an opinion that has been created among our writers, about the security and especially a lack of security in Google’s social network. Of course, it was an editorial opinion, and you may have a different opinion. Google certainly has a different opinion and agreed to give us some of its time today to explain the approach of privacy in Google+. We still do not agree with it in its entirety, but admit that Google has – from its perspective – a case. In the end, it may all come down to the philosophy of how open your information can be and how paranoid you need to be about your privacy.
One of the advantages of having early access to Google+ is not so much the fact that you can engage with others, simply because there isn’t that much engaging happening right now. However, there is quite a bit you can learn about your personal preferences how a social network should work for you as you can compare Facebook and Google+ side by side in a relatively harmless way: There may be an almost silly volume of interest in Google+, but your exposure on the network is still very limited. If you have read Kurt’s article, you know that we are concerned about Google’s approach to handling privacy (as we are about the protection of privacy in all social networks, by the way.)
Not surprisingly, Google believes it has an approach that is reasonable and appropriate to secure privacy in Google+. Google argues that its social network privacy is much more flexible than the tools provided by its “competition” (we assume that would be Facebook.) Google+ privacy relies on (1) your general Google account settings, (2) the settings in your Google Profile, (3) the use of Circles and (4) your ability to understand your conduct and potential impact of the data you post online.
