Google pushing all ‘Profiles’ pages public July 31 in Google+ transition
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Old Google Profiles are being switched over to Google+ profiles in the tech giant’s integration of existing products into its suite of social networking service called Google+, and on July 31 another big step will take place -- all Google Profiles will go public.
That means those who have Google Profiles pages set to ‘private’ will no longer have that option of hiding from the world online. Google announced the move in a statement on its website.
‘The purpose of Google Profiles is to enable you to manage your online identity,’ Google said in its notice of the private-to-public switch-over. ‘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.’
Pre-Google+ Google Profiles pages allowed a user to provide a bit of info about themselves and post links to their Web pages on other social networks, blogs, photo-sharing sites and personal or business Web pages. In the Google+ rollout, those who signed up for the social network saw their pages turn into Google+ Profiles, which offer the same functions as the old page but now connect to other social features built-into Google+.
But even with private pages going public, most information can still be kept locked away and not shared with those surfing the Internet.
‘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,’ Google said.
If a Google Profiles user doesn’t turn his or her page public by the end of the month, Google will delete the page.
‘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,’ the company said.
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-- Nathan Olivarez-Giles