Google has issued an ultimatum of sorts – if you are using Google Profile, you have uptil 31st of July to make it public if it is not already so, else Google will delete it.
Google’s official help article on Public Profiles reads:
“The purpose of Google Profiles is to enable you to manage your online identity. 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.
Keep in mind that your full name is 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.
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.”
ZDNet blog explains, “What this means is that, if you’ve been keeping your Google Profile private for the sake of social media invisibility, you cannot. Google is requiring that Google+ users be able to at least see that you exist on the network when doing searches. Oddly enough, Facebook still allows users to pull a more complete disappearing act through a judicious use of privacy settings.
As Searchengineland points out, though, Google Profiles still have the option to avoid Google search indexing, anyone within Google+ can still track you down thanks to this change.
Matt Weinberger of ZDNet believes this measure is likely aimed at helping the fledgling Google+ Project get off the ground . “More public Google Profiles searchable means more connections made which means more active users,” he says in the post.
The Internet is buzzing with suggestions that Google is about to unveil a new social networking platform called Google Circles, despite those reported to be close to the project denying that such a service exists.
Whether or not Google Circles does manifest itself at Google I/O, the company is independently working to make its various websites and services more social, pushing updates to Google Profiles, making its toolbars more visible and easier to navigate.