Google Shuttering Google+ for Consumers After Undisclosed Data Exposure

[Tozovac]

In this era of quick product development (especially software), that creates a big potential to needlessly create something new just because a company can do so. But there just need to be so much overlap, just like GM recognized the need to kill off Oldsmobile & Pontiac. Facebook replacing Myspace was an exception of sorts, but that's because FB arrived as your cool 22 year old uncle/aunt that could appeal far up & down, replacing the flashy, annoying 12 year old tweener wearing glitter paint red jeans...

Tapatalk was great for tracking your enthusiast forums until it tried to become more like facebook and also adopted the awful iOS7 minimal-esque vague UIx. Delete and haven't used in years.

Instagram was a great photo/theme/image-sharing app until it started adding video and updates and other social-esque integration to where it's feeling more and more like just another social app.

Linked In was and is a good job-networking app, but now I have to wade thru noise like posts for recipes and entertainment events from some of my contacts. Who's policing things at LI??

Facebook was great when it seemed focused and was convenient to use, but things like requiring a separate messages iOS app are starting to really annoy. Deleted both the FB and message apps on my iPhone.

Ping was never of interest, neither was Google+ since you had other apps/websites already in place to share things.

Just because a company can create something quickly and try to compete, they most often really shouldn't bother. The Leader is usually too far ahead. I feel bad for companies where the board of directors are mandating innovation that's resulting in spaghetti on the wall and lots of change for the sake of change.

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Google Software is mostly rubbish anyway. Search is ok, Maps is alright and then it’s all downhill from there.

Maps is pretty good, but Material Design's unnecessary attempt at inventing a UIx better than Apple's before 2013 was the start of Google's downfall to me. As many critiques as I have against much of ios7-ios12's still-unnecessarily-reinvented UIx features, using Android is downright painful to me. Suffering with Google Map's iOSx app is about all I can handle and I just grin and bear it.

 

[eoblaed]

I'm sure the 17 people that still use it will be sad.

 

[ChrisCW11]

Funny, people comment on here like Apple has anything remotely equivalent. Messages != Google+.

But even so, after having tried to use Google+ for years my ex-coworkers and other developer friends felt it better to keep in touch using a "professional" tool by moving to Slack.

The problem with Google is that 5+ years ago they had a very good intention of tightly integrating their services and making it easy and seamless to move between them, then Sundar came along and crapped on all that by creating a bunch of parallel, confusing and in no way connected services and Google+ and Hangouts died from atrophy.

You can blame all of Google's current service strategies and privacy problems on their current CEO who just decided to retool the whole service portfolio without any focus or resemblance of an actual goal.

 

[Brenster]

The iOS OneDrive app has supported HEIC for a while now.

I stand corrected, it looks as though the OneDrive iOS app has been updated to preserve HEIC as HEIC when uploading/backing up using the app. This wasn’t the case a couple of months ago when I last looked. Well done Microsoft.

 

[majordude]

They had 500,000 users?!

 

[macduke]

The whole Google ecosystem is terribly fragmented. Is it as bad with Apple and all of it's services?

I would say overall Apple's services aren't quite as good feature wise but they're more secure and have privacy built-in. iCloud services also work well across Mac, iPad, iPhone, and to some extent the Watch. I used to use Google's services a long time ago so I can't really judge, but just looking at features and reviews they seem to have an edge for users who don't care about anything I said above. For what I need I think it works pretty well. I think Mail needs some feature upgrades, and I think iCloud storage needs some features to bring it up to par with Dropbox, which I use to store most things that aren't a photo/video or device backup. I think for what it is it's a pretty good price. I've got my wife, daughter, and grandparents on my iCloud family thing for $9.99/mo for 2TB of storage. I'll add my son once he's old enough to have an iPad and my six slots will be full. Most people in our family uses iOS so we use the commenting/like system in the photos app as a sort of social network to see what other family members are up to. I much prefer the privacy of that to the typical social network—especially because zero people outside my family care to see a gazillion photos of my kids.
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Exactly my story. F' Google. I'm deleting all my Google accts, after reading in their privacy statement that they collect all my web browsing data, and I don't even use Chrome. Entitled data mining theives, & you can't really stop them from collecting your location data. If you have any Google apps they will collect your location data but that notice is buried deep in the policies.

Yeah I think I've only got Google Maps installed as a backup and I've got location set to off in settings. The only thing they can do is sniff the IP/WiFi when I'm using the app. Apps can also get your location from photos if you don't strip the EXIF data. Nowadays I don't have to use Google Maps much anymore since Apple Maps is actually pretty decent so I should probably just go ahead and delete it out of an abundance of caution.

 

[stillcrazyman]

I'm fine with G+ going away. I only used it for one community group.
I just want a secure and easily managed photo community type place where my group can still connect and share our passion for photography. Flickr might be a good choice if they can disconnect from Yahoo. Other places I've looked aren't too promising.

 

[T-R-S]

Dear Boys & Girls - In to today's lesson we will learn that Goggle and privacy do not belong together
- they are O P P O S I T E S.

 

[commakaze]

No social network will ever survive if they do not allow to freely claim and/or change one's username

Snapchat didn't listen, and now they're on their deathbed

super interesting - I haven't really been able to put this in words (for some reason even though it's a simple thing...). I'm super curious what made you think so... I was even super bullish on snapchat, and in some ways still am, but I have thought so strongly that the no-name change policy is a horrible decision also. like super bad idea.

 

[Kevbasscat]

Dear Boys & Girls - In to today's lesson we will learn that Goggle and privacy do not belong together
- they are O P P O S I T E S.

Do you mean to say Google and privacy are mutually exclusive terms, thus the term Google Privacy is a juxtaposition…? Lol, I concur.

 

[pika2000]

And right on cue, zero people cares about this. The spotlight is on the Pixel 3, and how you should put a constantly listening and looking device from Google in your home. Yay!

 

[Kevbasscat]

You 'can't' spell either but that's a separate issue.

Perhaps people will wake up one day and realise social media was never a good idea whichever platform it is.

The sooner the better, because as ironic as this sounds, social media as well as other forms of online communication and gaming are killing the interpersonal skill sets of the young, and now the old now too. Just try to have phone conversation with someone today. People avoid it like the plague, and the human voice (well most) is the most beautiful of instruments, and says much more than merely words. We’re missing out on the analog human experience. You simply cannot digitize a person’s heart and soul, as most of these mediums attempt. Of course, we’re all here, judging and what medium are we on? Fortunately most here are intelligent and articulate, and still have a working vocabulary. The problem is the dumbing down of people who only do online and watch television. I stopped in 86’ when the Simpsons first aired. I said, "you have insulted my intelligence for the last time, you’re not dragging me down to your level." I believe this sums up the state of our society. A tv executive at an awards banquet for the industry stated,

"No one ever went broke, underestimating the viewing taste of the American television audience.." That translates easily to this world also.

 

[C DM]

The sooner the better, because as ironic as this sounds, social media as well as other forms of online communication and gaming are killing the interpersonal skill sets of the young, and now the old now too. Just try to have phone conversation with someone today. People avoid it like the plague, and the human voice (well most) is the most beautiful of instruments, and says much more than merely words. We’re missing out on the analog human experience. You simply cannot digitize a person’s heart and soul, as most of these mediums attempt. Of course, we’re all here, judging and what medium are we on? Fortunately most here are intelligent and articulate, and still have a working vocabulary. The problem is the dumbing down of people who only do online and watch television. I stopped in 86’ when the Simpsons first aired. I said, "you have insulted my intelligence for the last time, you’re not dragging me down to your level." I believe this sums up the state of our society. A tv executive at an awards banquet for the industry stated,

"No one ever went broke, underestimating the viewing taste of the American television audience.." That translates easily to this world also.

Kids and their rock 'n' roll music.

 

[Rajani Isa]

To be fair I avoid phone conversations like the plague, and that started before social media.

 

[Substance90]

Google Software is mostly rubbish anyway. Search is ok, Maps is alright and then it’s all downhill from there.

Well, search is pretty much the only thing they actually developed themselves. Everything else is acquired technology - YouTube, Maps, Android etc.

 

[Lankyman]

Well, search is pretty much the only thing they actually developed themselves. Everything else is acquired technology - YouTube, Maps, Android etc.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Apple has also made a few acquisitions in their time.

 

[0924487]

Like many of Google's names for new products or services, I had never had any idea what Google+ or what it could do for me. And I was not interested in investing the time to try and find out.
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I'm sorry. But I'm confused by this statement. I thought Cambridge Analytica purchased data from Facebook and then misused the data. It sounds like Google inadvertently allowed customers' who were purchasing this service to see the users' personal data.

No for FB, they had a loop-hole in the app integration API feature, just like google+'s API issue. Cambridge Analytica utilized this loop-hole with a seemingly harmless app integration to gain massive amount of data on user's FB public profile, and ran doggy sophisticated analytics on them without disclosing that to the users or Facebook. FB grant profile and data access through API for app developers and massive data mining and analytics like that were not for "intended use" and is now considered as an abuse and a hack.

 

[ErikGrim]

Remember when they forced you to convert your YouTube accounts if you wanted to comment? I do and I will never forget.

 

[Lankyman]

Remember when they forced you to convert your YouTube accounts if you wanted to comment? I do and I will never forget.

You can't say you will never forget as who knows what the future holds.

No one forced you to do anything, you either add comments or you don't, if you do then those are the rules. If you join a club/gym or anything similar, they have rules which you must follow. Why do you expect a website to be any different?

 

[decafjava]

You can't say you will never forget as who knows what the future holds.

No one forced you to do anything, you either add comments or you don't, if you do then those are the rules. If you join a club/gym or anything similar, they have rules which you must follow. Why do you expect a website to be any different?

Just because those are the rules doesn’t mean they are smart or popular.

 

[Lankyman]

Just because those are the rules doesn’t mean they are smart or popular.

But you’re not being forced to use the service. This is what baffles me, we appear to live in times where people not only want to use a service/facility, but use it on their own terms. How did we get to this point?

I work on the principle that if I wish to join/use a service/facility then I have to abide by the rules of these businesses/institutions.

 

[Rajani Isa]

But you’re not being forced to use the service. This is what baffles me, we appear to live in times where people not only want to use a service/facility, but use it on their own terms. How did we get to this point?

I work on the principle that if I wish to join/use a service/facility then I have to abide by the rules of these businesses/institutions.

The problem was YouTube becoming a platform then an unnecessary rules change after we joined. Especially when it was just an attempt to force growth of their Google+ social media platform. It’s like they forgot how they made google popular - by making a good product not forcing us to use it.

 

[kdarling]

What? An API bug that allows private data to be extracted somehow isn’t a data breach?

That's correct. A bug itself is not a breach, but simply an opening for a possible breach.

Unless you're wanting to claim that every one of the dozens if not hundreds of security holes that Apple has patched in its software over the years, should all be described as "data breaches"?!

Nonsense.

 

[Lankyman]

The problem was YouTube becoming a platform then an unnecessary rules change after we joined. Especially when it was just an attempt to force growth of their Google+ social media platform. It’s like they forgot how they made google popular - by making a good product not forcing us to use it.

So you're not happy with the new rules. Answer - stop using the service. Nothings forever and if the move backfires on them then they only have themselves to blame.

 

[Rajani Isa]

So you're not happy with the new rules. Answer - stop using the service. Nothings forever and if the move backfires on them then they only have themselves to blame.

The issue was communities. Moving communities is never easy. Doubly so in this case for monitoEd channels.