Google+ and Privacy on Social Network

Google recently launched their social network called 'google+'. There is a lot of buzz about this social network as it is a mix of facebook, twitter and myspace. Though some of you may rely more on google than any of the network but it is always better to think about privacy. Google+ has it's benefits and quirks in their new social network. In this hub my focus is to show you how you can manage privacy on google+ and how much to get involved in it.

Privacy is dependent on the person and the people around. But sometimes people have less power under some governance and their personal information is tampered for the sake of corporate profit. Some may argue that people have no valuable life to care about privacy but this is where my opinion and views differ from those who don't care about privacy. My opinion is that if you care for privacy then any social project from google is not for you. They're going to make every social product searchable with their search engine. So think before you upload any data on google.

If you share a lot of pictures with your family members and friends then make sure you create circle of 'family' and 'close friends' before sharing such data. Google+ is like open dorm room and makes it hard for users not to share their content. Anything you share on google is pretty much open and others can see the data from the leaks in circle. So if you don't want to share your pictures on google+ then share it on facebook and take only reliable friends in your list. Google+ being open social network, it is hard to make connections that are going to keep things secret. So chances are there that your personal pics are likely to get leaked or going viral.

If you care for personal picture privacy then it's better for you to avoid google+.

Google+ is very strict about real names on their network. Why ? it helps them collect more reliable data about the members so they can target ads effectively. Real names also help them to avoid fake profiles and spammers and criminals.

Google+ and Gmail and Buzz sharing has impact on your search results if you're signed in user. So if anyone shares a link about "candy cane" and if you searched on google with the same query while logged in to google+ then your search results are influenced by your friends search patterns. You'll find that each search result shows results -" shared by <friends name> <friend2 name> and liked by "<friends name>".

This is again one big flaw in personalized search especially when you bookmark or +1 stuff on web which you don't want others to find out. So it's like personalized search is going open for friends and connections.

Google's earlier failed social network orkut had lots of identity theft issues with female profiles. Same is going to happen with google+ as it is open to view in search engines and profile restriction isn't there. Every profile also requires real picture and name, so that is something against female profile anonymity.

If you've some issues with sharing stuff due to your offline life then consider sticking to either orkut or facebook and keep your profile private to friends only. Google+ is not meant for the anonymous users or for people who want to safegurad their life on social network. Unfortunately that is how google thinks with this open social network.

Google+ allows anyone to comment on any random persons profile if the status is public. This often creates arguments and issues on discussions which are created on shared links or status. This is something different from facebooks friends only discussions on shared status. As you know your friends and connections very well, it's easy to stop such things but it's not possible with google+. Too much open view of social network, lack of anonymity, no groups or community feature makes anyone feel bored. Though there are some great folks on google+ sharing some nice stuff but too open social network gives directionless feel and gets most of us into boredom.

These are some of my observations during google+ beta trial period. So feel free to disagree or vent out in comments if you're a google fanboi. I'm sure that google is going to cover a lot of stuff in upcoming months and will correct most of the flaws mentioned here. Some of the flaws can be corrected even today but by default google is not offering that solution and is pretty much open as i mentioned in this hub. So use either facebook or orkut if you wish to keep the privacy and if you're not bothered about your personal information then feel free to join google+.