I was pressured/forced at various times to create one in order to use Google services. I can't remember the details, but I do remember feeling annoyed at Google that it wasn't 100% clear how to opt out or hide things to the maximum amount, made worse by the fact that this un-asked-for task was between me and trying to achieve my original intent.

Since I didn't actually want one, a private one, which was effectively empty, was the next best thing.

I created one, while I was trying out Buzz. I don't like putting my personal details out on the web for no reason, so I kept details out of my profile, and it stayed private.

When I saw this message yesterday, I saved the few "Buzzes" I made last year, and deleted my profile.

It should be the reverse, private should be the default, and public should be the eyebrow raising exception.

How nice it is of Google to decide by fiat to impose their standard on everybody else without consultatin (I know Eric Schmidt is on record as saying that he doesn't believe in privacy, here we have a prime example).

However, at least they are handling this better than the way Facebook does. If this was Facebook they would have (a) just done it without giving advance warning and (b) would have flipped everyone who was private over to public.

At least Google is deleting the accounts rather than outright exposing the info.

I'm curious too, though I think the whole point of this change is that a private Google profile is essentially useless.

I used it regularly to 'buzz' interesting articles for myself and for my daughter. Its a shame that I am forced to delete my private profile, and loose my ability to use 'buzz'.

We will have to strictly rely on news reader to share information between ourselves.

Not everyone wants or needs to be in social network where they do not control their own privacy.

Google should stop chasing facebook and focus on keeping their search relevant.

I created one because when people google your name it will return as the very first result. This makes it quite useful to have all of the information that you want to be found available first instead of the random posts from 5 years ago that no matter how hard you try will always float near the top of the results.

I have a google account without a google public profile. I use it to access google reader and google wave (both are services used by my friends), as well as customizing google search behavior. I need to expose neither my real name nor my contacts information.