Google+ Account Deletions Intensify, Sparking Numerous Complaints [Account Deletions Are Ramping Up On Google+, The Reasons Behind Such Deletions Vary Wildly]

Posted on TFTS by Steve Anderson on Monday, 25. July 2011 under: Computers & Computing, Net Resources

Just before the weekend kicked off in earnest, our own Robert Nelson brought us a disturbing story about a Google user who lost his entire digital existence following a major shutdown of his various Google service-based accounts. And now, reports are emerging of comparable, but not so widespread, issues in which Google+ users are finding their accounts being rapidly deleted.

This particular issue has been in the early stages of development largely since Google+’s start, but over the intervening weeks, it grew to an issue much larger in scope than in the preceding time. Google, for its part, issued a variety of statements detailing why they made deletions, and from there, how to file appeals in a bid to get their profiles back.

But when Google recently reportedly nailed a couple of big names, like Limor Fried (or, “Ladyada” of Adafruit Industries) or former Google employee Kirrily “Skud” Robert, things escalated significantly.

The issues appear to be raised mainly from people who are following Google’s directives about using real names only, but whose real names are sufficiently unusual–they contain foreign characters, or they’re just unusual names–to make them seem like pseudonyms. There’s also a growing contingent of people who want to use pseudonyms to protect their privacy.

All this is somewhat ironic given the other problem Google+ has, with businesses eager to put up their own Google+ profiles, but not being permitted to do so.

It has to be said, of course, that Google+ is still in beta, which means issues like this may well crop up from time to time as all the bugs are hammered out of the details, to mix a few metaphors into a new and serviceable metaphor of its own. But still, this kind of thing in the early going isn’t going to do much to endear people to Google+ unless there’s much clearly communication as to what’s going on. Few people will likely want to take the risk of signing up for a Google+ profile only to discover that Google killed it because their real name looks too fake.

Or will they? I’ll leave that one open for you, folks–do all the reports of account deletions get you concerned about the state of Google+? Or are you chalking this all up to beta issues and figure they’ll do much better when they get going in earnest? Either way, the comments section waits for you below, so head on down and fill us in on what you think about this.

Shiromasa Yamamoto
Over the next few years as competition heats up among social networking sites such as Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin. Content, features, and services will be important but the two most important deciding factors will be Privacy, and the sharing of Ad Revenue.Privacy regardless of social and/or information is not as protected as most people think on social networking sites such as Google+ & Facebook. If you have an email address or real name, there are companies today who are able to track this information. Most search engines that crawl these sites are able to atleast get Jane Doe’s User Name. Both Google+, Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin have excellent privacy settings, and different ways to protect it’s users privacy, but both fail to address the real issues at hand. The real issues most people have today about privacy is the amount of information these sites are collecting about its users, the way this information is being collected, and how this information is being used. One thing that social networking sites today don’t want to tell you, is that any site can be hacked! The only way for sites to combat this problem is to not ask it’s users to provide their real names, and email addresses.As to the sharing of Ad Revenue, there is only one site today that allows it’s users to place their own Ads on both personal & business profiles.ONLYMEWORLD is less the 20% complete, and may not be as savvy as some of the other social networking sites, but early on seem to realize that Privacy and the sharing of Ad Revenue is paramount to both longevity & success in the industry. Their platform is similiar to Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and Linkedin, yet differ because of their willingness to protect it’s users privacy, and the sharing of ad revenue. The best part…It’s Absolutely Free!