Google shuts down Google+ network

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Google’s just now confirming that an API bug that might’ve exposed private profile data for 500,000 Google+ users. I didn’t realize Google+ has 500,00
[See the full post at: Google shuts down Google+ network]

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abbodi86, SueW, Myst, FakeNinja, GreatAndPowerfulTech, Elly

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The giant pillar killer of the internet crumbling, never, eroded by their own API’s?
Isn’t Google one of THE security advocates, or so we are led to believe..<facepalm>

Google plan to fully shut down Google+ by August 2019, perhaps the Google calendar if affected also!

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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woody wrote:

I didn’t realize Google+ has 500,000 users.

They all signed up accidentally, or were tricked into it.

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Myst

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I was minding my own business one day, checking my email there was an “invite” from one of my 500 cousins, of whom I barely know, to join Google+. I trashed the request then realized I had a Google+ account afterall. Nothing on it but it bothers me to no end when a company tries to take over your life. Which, by the way, is becoming very popular these days, as we all know too well.

MacOS iPadOS and sometimes SOS

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wdburt1

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I’m pretty sure a huge majority of the signups were due to G+ was being required to comment on Youtube.

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SkipH

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Did not realize it was still going, given how most Google failures are quickly mothballed.

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The only reason Google+ had any users to begin with was because they were requiring it to make YouTube accounts or to connect YouTube accounts to it to comment a few years back.

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I remember when that happened with my Youtube account, for the hour it took me to figure out what was going on, I was convinced I had been hacked. As soon as it was pointed out that the G+ was only necessary if you wanted to make comments I disconnected it and never looked back.

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Moreover, Google+ also required you to use your real name when signing up for a Google+ account, and when commenting on YouTube. That ended my use of YouTube. I still have an empty account on YouTube, yet the account is not under my real name. The only thing I use the account for is to subscribe to YouTube channels which interest me, and to occasionally comment on a video.

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I use an alias (exception would be when using official business) each time I sign up for anything internet wise like YouTube or Google, and email. My family asks “so you’re “mcduffy” on one email account and on the other you’re “sly fox”.” Latter being fictitious at this moment as well, and I answer “what’s in a name anyway.” Facebook is history for me but I used an alias there too, folks knew the real me and that worked. I detected privacy issues way back in the day. If I want you to know I’ll tell ya. There’s enough of us out there as it is, why stretch the issue.

MacOS iPadOS and sometimes SOS

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GoneToPlaid,

I am curious about something you wrote in the entry I am answering now. This is most likely a very naïve observation, but it looks like you are saying that, on one hand, one cannot create a YouTube account unless it is under one’s real name and, on the other, that one can, because you have done just that.

I have no YouTube accounts to date, but might at a latter time, as I have found some topics that interest me there (tech, how-to-fix-it, jazz, folk and classical music) and it is my understanding that what is generally available to those not subscribing to some channels dedicated to those topics may not be all that is there about them in YouTube. And that is why I would like to understand your entry better. There is also the question of not seeing commercials, but for me that is not a real issue.  As to commenting there, that is not something I plan to do, unless I really need to know something, but did not understand its explanation when watching a video about it, to be able to ask for it to be explained further. So, for me, subscribing would be mainly about having more access to all of the content that interests me.

As to the future of YouTube and Google, I am inclined to bet that whatever the issues and however ugly, YouTube is by now too important to too many as a way to accessing content and as a tool of research and for learning useful things that is not likely (although worryingly possible) to go down in little pieces because of that. At worst, something substantial will remain afterwards, by whatever name, and probably include much of the content that was kept in YouTube.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
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macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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The fact that Googles first response to the breach being reported is to shut the G+ service down makes me think there’s definitely more going on that they don’t want coming to light. Or they believe that shutting the service down can stave off a possible lawsuit.

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Google admitted that they don’t know how many users have been impacted since they keep only two weeks of data.

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Or maybe G+ is all but dead, and this is a good excuse to shutter it without admitting it’s overall failure.

LABS - a family friendly webcomic about scientists, robots and Wisconsin

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Microfix

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Microsoft avenged after all

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Us in the cross-fire.

On permanent hiatus {with backup and coffee}
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AlexEiffel

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Keeping such a mess hidden for 3 years due to fear that an external investigation/regulation would search at Googles (WSJ), tells everything one needs to know about the credibility of their rosy words that they honour their customers and that customer’s interests are oh so dear to them and that they are so very much about transparency and bla and bla and blablabla.

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Marc

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Cybertooth

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Yes @gonetoplaid, I remember the real name requirement. I joined Google+ via an invite before it went public. When I posted in Google+, the first part of my email address was assigned as my Google+ view-able posting name. Before I realized it, my pristine gmail account started to get all sorts of spam. At that time, all a spammer had to do was gather Google+ post/usernames and add @gmail.com. Several months later, I received an email from Google challenging my  Google+ name.  It has been a while, but the email scared me into thinking that if I didn’t correct the name issue, I would lose my Google+ account and possibly my associated gmail account. I cancelled Google+ at that point and felt lucky to be able to keep my gmail account.

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I do not have a Google+™ account.

I use a frequent username with it; however, I have removed all the data which Google™ may wish to monitize. The street address now associated with it is the (former – it went out of business in early June 2018) venue of {ahem ~ I think this is within the decorous rules of this forum} Mimi’s Adult Book Store.

The E-Mail account is a Spam-blocking alias that forwards to my main E-Mail account. If it is spammed, only a few spam messages will get through before it dies.

So I think I am not affected by this snag.

Important links you can use, without the monetization pitch = https://pqrs-ltd.xyz/bookmark4.html

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There’s now a settlement for those who had Google+ accounts:

https://www.pcworld.com/article/3570214/if-you-ever-set-up-a-google-account-you-might-be-due-some-money.html

Nathan Parker

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SueW, Myst, Elly

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I’m having trouble deciding how I’ll spend that 12 bucks.

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SueW

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