Google+ - All Profiles need to be Public

**chud** · 07-06-2011, 08:44 AM

Public profiles
The purpose of Google Profiles is to enable you to manage your online identity. Today, nearly all Google Profiles are public. We believe that using Google Profiles to help people find and connect with you online is how the product is best used. Private profiles don’t allow this, so we have decided to require all profiles to be public.

Keep in mind that your full name and gender are the only required information that will be displayed on your profile; you’ll be able to edit or remove any other information that you don’t want to share.

If you currently have a private profile but you do not wish to make your profile public, you can delete your profile. Or, you can simply do nothing. All private profiles will be deleted after July 31, 2011.

**gabbott** · 07-06-2011, 11:48 AM

So I'm confused at what makes a profile 'private'. Is it if you uncheck the option to make it publicly searchable?

**DenverRalphy** · 07-06-2011, 11:53 AM

Originally Posted by gabbott

So I'm confused at what makes a profile 'private'. Is it if you uncheck the option to make it publicly searchable?

Yep. That checkbox is the setting that determines whether it's public or private.

**gabbott** · 07-06-2011, 12:18 PM

Originally Posted by DenverRalphy

Yep. That checkbox is the setting that determines whether it's public or private.

Ok, updated mine. Being it's a social network, I can understand something has to be public facing. Since it can be limited to just a full name and sex, don't see this as really a privacy concern.

**DenverRalphy** · 07-06-2011, 12:29 PM

Originally Posted by gabbott

Ok, updated mine. Being it's a social network, I can understand something has to be public facing. Since it can be limited to just a full name and sex, don't see this as really a privacy concern.

I don't see it as much of a concern either. It's the same as Facebook. Anybody can search and get your name and gender.

**chud** · 07-06-2011, 12:31 PM

Yeah I didn't post it so much to raise any alarms about privacy as I did about them deleting your profile if you don't change it to public.

There's already enough "outrage" surrounding it because people can't get it. I'd hate to see what happens August 1st.

**gabbott** · 07-06-2011, 12:57 PM

Originally Posted by chud

Yeah I didn't post it so much to raise any alarms about privacy as I did about them deleting your profile if you don't change it to public.

There's already enough "outrage" surrounding it because people can't get it. I'd hate to see what happens August 1st.

I hope Google gives ample notice to those that have theirs set to private to avoid unwanted deletions. They really don't need any bad press that can be avoided if they want this to succeed.

**gabbott** · 07-06-2011, 06:22 PM

So this site here seems to indicate that unchecking the option to make your profile searchable on search isn't what makes it private. So still confused at what exactly a private profile actually is.

And you can still control what information you share on your profile. The bare minimum is your name and gender. You can also hide your profile from showing up in search results, which makes it effectively private.

Also found this:

Almost sounds like a lot of the sites reporting this as an issue are reporting something that really won't affect too many people. Anyone that is already using G+ wont be affected because they have a public profile already.