Opt out of Google using you as an ad | Hacker News Reader

Opt out of Google using you as an ad

plus.google.com

145 pointsChirag90 comments

I honestly don't understand whats wrong with this. It just seems like the natural progression of the services that Google already provides. If my friend searches for a new phone, they should see my public reviews of the phones. Friends reviews should be made front and center because reviews from people we know are always more valuable. The way the page reads, it seems they will only use your reviews in ads for friends, I think that's fair, but if they use it for strangers too then I'll probably opt out.

Me neither. It seems perfectly consonant with Google's entire MO, and not in any way out of line with the implicit or explicit usage agreement that people have with them. Perhaps the culture of G+ is such that this is unexpected, or perhaps it's just HN echo chamber bleating? I'm not a Google user, so I wouldn't presume to say.

I agree, it seems expected. Every time I +1 something it's with the goal of that turning up in someone's search results one day.

They only use your reviews in ads for strangers if you share it with everyone. Just share it with one circle, and only people in that circle will see it, if I understand this correctly.

Nice to see some common sense on the subject here. Totally agree. This is a nice feature. I like seeing my friends reviews of Android and Chrome app I download. I would like to have the same feature for ads. This is great.

Shouldn't that be a conversation you have with your friend directly? Also it's not a recommendation for your friend, it's a recommendation to the general public.

If I want to recommend something to my friends on Plus, don't I already have a "Friends" circle I can broadcast to?

It's not a recommendation to the general public: your existing +1s, reviews and comments were already shared with whatever circles you'd already opted to share them with; this option just has those recommendations appear next to adverts for /only/ those same people.

That's not exactly how this works. This only shows positive reviews that you've made for the product, not all of your reviews.

I'd imagine advertiser's will request that bad reviews not show, so pretty much it will only be useful if you endorse something.

The contrast with Facebook couldn't be more stark.

Google is advertising the change extensively, and they explain it in simple English.

Google lets you opt out.

And if you were already opted out, they retain that more restrictive setting without you having to do anything.

I personally don't want to be an unpaid shill for anybody, which is why I refuse to create G+ or Facebook accounts.

But I have to recognize that Google's approach is far more open and honest than Facebook's.

> The contrast with Facebook couldn't be more stark.

Wouldn't it be more stark if Google didn't do this at all?

One good reason why it "shouldn't" do this? It's doing it and giving you a choice to either be a part of it or not. That is more than you can ask for from a free service. If you were able to be a part of a service, not pay a thing, feeding data to it and expecting it not to use it in anyway you wouldn't like- then you would also not see the constant innovation brought about by such companies; and this is justified as long as the user is not forced into it; the golden rule of software.

Because with that reasoning we could, and really should, just abandon all free software. Because with that reasoning it is worthless.

There are other ways to make money in this world, even for a free service, than being a dick.

When we look back a few years from now to see where google went wrong, it'll begin and end with Google+. It is the worst product execution and strategy in recent times.

I'd go back a little further, when the ads first started to overpower the search results.

In retrospect, Buzz might have been their last classically-Googly project.

Holy sensationalism batman! I know HN loves its sensationalism, but wow.

Name another time that Google spent years putting its entire weight behind something no one wanted.

Google Wave.

Entire weight behind Google Wave! I think you got that wrong, chief. Also, it was killed in 1 year: http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/04/wave-goodbye-to-google-wave...

After spending years developing it.

Google Buzz?

Android? Everybody loves it now, but I remember most people saying, "I just don't see why we need this"

Either that, or it's a perfectly fine social network I use routinely to stay in touch with several friends who don't use Facebook or Twitter.

If a such a highly publicized Google product is only used by "several friends" years after launch, it should be killed--not spammed more into the faces of users that do not want it.

Like Google Reader? /ducks

Even then, I bet Google Reader had a higher happy user to pissed user ratio than Google+.

Yeah, Google was pushing Reader on every opportunity they could and still was a wasteland.

The "several friends" I contact through Google+ are actual friends that I actually contact routinely, unlike the vast majority of the 200 or so friends I have on Facebook. Maybe I'm just unpopular, but I don't have more than a dozen actual close friends that I communicate with routinely.

Maybe he's talking about the ads, not plus. If the recommendations are just for people in your "friends" circle this recommendation engine has minimal impact. And just because I circle some people in Plus doesn't mean I want to see their recommendations.

You're not required to have 200 friends on fb. Just unfriend the not so real friends. You could have not do real friends on google+ too if you chose.

Most my close friends are not on google+.

I have my Facebook settings fairly well customized so that I only see updates from my closer friends. My point was that "several friends" is not a meaninglessly small number for a social network.

Sounds like bias by anecdote to me. Google+ is a quite well thought-out and executed social network, especially compared to Facebook.

I agree. I wrote a long thing about that a while back:

http://techcrunch.com/2012/03/26/google-the-charge-of-the-li...

It really is just a single monumental mistake, everything about Google+ except for the product itself, which was always high quality (but the wrong product to begin with).

My problem with Google+ is that it's designed to trick people into sharing stuff. It's made me paranoid that anything I watch on YouTube or a story I read via Google News may end up in some stream I dont even know exists.

(OT: I just pitched you a story to your email:)

I've moved our Open Source Community to a Google+ Community, I've personally found it's the best way to communicate and share content, news and announcements which ended up being much more engaging, interactive, visible and functional than everything else I've tried.

It encourages a better community feeling than the 140 chars allows for on Twitter, the content posted ends up being a lot more interesting, richer and more positive than the constant dump o' hate I see in my Tweet stream. Personally I'd prefer more ex-bloggers start posting on G+ than micro blogging their opinions on Twitter

Did you consider switching to a subreddit?

Nope, I prefer G+'s insistence on dealing with real people rather than anonymous aliases - IMO it's part of the reason I see a lot less hate on G+.

It's also nice to have the option to privately msg and hangout whenever we need to.

Twitter is your counterpoint? What else did you consider?

We've moved from a mailing list which was a black-hole for Content with very poor discoverability, and despite having many members was mostly read-only/ignored with just the same small group responding. We're now directing future support questions to StackOverflow. Many people were using GitHub issues to communicate, but this was primarily only seen by the Core team and effectively invisible to the wider community.

We see much more engaging and visible feedback on G+, people frequently comment on posts, +1 and re-share.

p.s. Facebook have this for years.

this is how to opt out:

https://www.facebook.com/settings?tab=ads&section=social&vie...

(select "Pair my social actions with ads for - No one")

Article about it:

http://www.forbes.com/sites/anthonykosner/2013/01/21/faceboo...

There were several HN posts on this as well will update once I find them...

I opted out by deleting my Google+ profile last night. I honestly never wanted a Google+ profile and me submitting a YouTube video for a private audience (demonstrating a new feature in a web site I developed for a side client) that got broadcast to all my friends on Google+ was the last straw.

Serious question: can you still use Google Hangouts -- the video chat -- after deleting G+? It's the one G+-related service I use.

Yes, it looks like it. I just went into it and it said, "Hangouts get better with a Google+ profile" and these benefits:

http://i.imgur.com/4guE3FI.png

But I was able to click "Not Now" and proceed.

So brave.

Didn't realize you could do that without destroying your profile elsewhere in their ecosystem. So something like GMail and YouTube still work, but you have go Google+ profile?

I hope you're prepared for a zillion A/B tested strategies to trick you to resigning up with G+ through YouTube. Say what you want about Facebook (and I don't have a FB account for many reasons) but at least they aren't constantly in my face trying to trick me to sign up.

Protip for the many Google employees that browse HN for fun or just to flag positive stories about Apple off the front page: the first 100 times I said "no" were not a mistake, I really don't want to sign up for G+. Get that shit out of my face forever pls.

If it was only YouTube... I recently got the prompt on GMail after a login, it was a mini-tab inside GMail for quite some time, it's a recurring question or even requirement on any new Google service, but the closest I've come to converting my old-style Google account into one with a G+ profile is certainly when adding your account on Android. One touch-sensitive button to start the process directly next to the one for skipping it..

Quite the obstacle course.

I doubt there's many Googlers who downvote positive Apple stories, I don't know where people get this assumption that Googlers hate Apple. I don't even downvote negative Google stories. The only time I ever downvote anything is when the person in question is being an obvious douchebag or abusive.

Do Google's managers browse HN? The only manager-type I've seen is Matt Cutts from Web Search.

Thank you, I just deleted my plus profile too. I didn't know I can still have gmail and youtube without having gplus.

This is exactly how opt-out pages should work.

I understand it took some bad publicity before it happened, but I commend Google for correcting their mistake and making it easy to disable.

I agree. It was so backward from what I would expect. Definitely great to see the box unchecked as default.

> Definitely great to see the box unchecked as default.

I'm not so sure if it's a default setting. I guess it inherits some other settings that Google used to have earlier. I have always allowed Google to use info from me, as they pleased. So, when I visted the link, it was checked for me.

Mind was unchecked as well. A little confusing seeing the headline and then it looking like I had already opted-out somehow. Made me wonder if it was one of those double-negative check boxes for toolbar installations.

Agreed. It's nice to see an opt out page that isn't asking me if I'm sure that I don't not want to opt in to not being used as a not ad.

It's too vague. Some of it sounds cool, some of it does not. So I opted out.

I would have made a series of focused opt-in pages that popup in stages over months (less annoying, less confusing) and sell each recommendation function as a cool feature with real benefits, like increased SEO authority, traffic to your Google Plus page, etc.

That said this makes me not want to comment, thumbs-up, plus one anything.

I don't understand this page.

Under the heading "Setting: Shared Endorsements in Ads" the copy reads as if this setting was an opt-out type of thing.

The actually text next to the checkbox reads as if this setting was an opt-in type of thing.

It's phrased as "do this", but it starts already-checked. So you're unchecking it to make it stop.

The box was already unchecked for me as well, thus the confusion.

It must be because you already opted out of +1's

It was blank for me too.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/10/11/google-users-shared-endor...

It wasn't checked for me. I suppose I could have unchecked it earlier and don't recall.

Mine was unchecked when I went to the page.

That's the way I read it.

I don't have a Google Plus profile for my Google account so I can't get to the checkbox to opt out without first creating a creating a Google Plus profile. Talk about a catch 22. Though maybe they're only planning to use Google+ content for ads?

Yes I think so because they specify that they use the photo and name that you use on G+ so I think you're good.

If you don't use G+ there is nothing this opt out would do. This is an opt-out for having your G+ profile picture and name show up next to search results for people who have you in their circles. If you +1 a page, then that page can be promoted in your friends search results with your name linked to the page. It's actually a fairly useful feature and I often see Android links promoted by people I have added to circles, which is useful.

It's really a fairly benign feature to begin with as you have to actually +1 a page before it shows up. At any rate, this checkbox appears to remove that so that others can't see your +1s in search results. I don't really understand why you would +1 something and not want people to see though, although I'm guessing it has something to do with an employee of companyA +1ing companyBs page by mistake and making it look like an endorsement.

"When you disable this setting, your friends will be less likely to benefit from your recommendations." - I'm surprised that even my computer could render these bytes with a straight face.

Why? It's absolutely true. If you disable the setting, your reviews for products will not show up in your friends' results. Presumably some people would be interested to know that one of their friends purchased such-and-such a thing and found it useful.

Asks me to make a google+ account. Does that mean I'm already immune?

yes

You sure? I'm now getting a banner at the top of all my google pages that directs me to a page that tells me that I need to opt out (of course, I get the same useless upgrade to google plus screen).

Ugh.

This was default off for my paid G Apps account with a regular G+ Profile.

It's interesting that folks in the tech community had the same reaction that I did... TURN IT OFF. Seems that this would be one of those "Don't be Evil" moments for Google. It seems reasonable that people wouldn't want their rating or review used out of context on an ad. This is exactly what's wrong with Facebook "Like" buttons. Why repeat the same mistake?

Why would a rating or review of a place be out of context on an ad for it?

Who wants to bet that checkbox does nothing...like the thermostat in my office to control the temperature.

Speaking of all this tripe, does anyone know how to export your YouTube favourites without creating a G+ account?

A couple of days ago, it starting requiring me to sign up to add a video to my list of favourites, and the API throws an error - probably for the same reason.

   http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/base/users/<youtube-username>/favorites?alt=rss&v=2&orderby=published&client=ytapi-youtube-profile

Is it unchecked by default? For me it was unchecked when I got there.

I forget what the old setting was, but there was a G+ setting about showing +1s in other contexts, which I recall unchecking when I was unchecking all the "email me about..." settings and other cruft in the G+ settings. Looks like they remember that (it was unchecked for me too).

I'm in the minority in that I love Google+. It's everything good about social networking without any of those pesky people everyone seems to like so much.

This is a perfect example of HN acting productively. Identifies a serious problem that effects the audience and pushes the solution to the top.

Do I have to make a plus account to opt out?

Don't you need an account to be used in ads to begin with?

Yes, you need a G+ account to make reviews. Not having a G+ account means you cannot be used for Shared Endorsements.

Disclaimer: I'm a Google employee.

The only users included in this are ones with G+ accounts so you are good.

Didn't go through the link.

This was turned off by default for me when I edited my Google Profile (not a paid user).

Shared Endorsements Off edit

I made this simpler, just leave google+ and I'm "safe".

Anyone else find it ironic you cannot +1 that page?

Shouldn't it be opt-in ?

Unfortunately this page will probably not even hit the most gullible folks who signed in their gmail and are using Google+ unknowingly. Hope there is a broader communication from Google to allow people to disable this. Can't imagine this was made an automatic opt in.

So the people who are unknowingly using G+... aren't really generating anything for Google to use, are they? They want to show your reviews alongside ads. Well, if you're making reviews on Google+, that's not really "unknowing". If you're sharing, +1'ing, following, or starring content on G+, you're not really unknowingly using G+.

So basically people who technically have a G+ account but never use it shouldn't be affected, because you have to use G+ to generate this content.

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