The Unspeakable Privacy-Destroying Evil of THE GOOGLE! Or … not

Google rolled out this week (still rolling outward) a new feature that, when you're in Gmail, if you start typing in a contact and someone you have in your Google+ circles fits the name pattern you are typing in, their name will be auto-suggested.

The Anti-Googlers are immediately out in force:

"Google is trying to force people to use their stupid Google+!"

Um … how? I mean, this isn't requiring anyone to do anything, it's a moderately interesting service in Gmail.  It doesn't seem likely to draw away anyone from Facebook. Does Google want to encourage people to use Google+?  Um, yeah, sure. People who have products … often … do that.  But it's not forcing people to do so in any way. It's not making Gmail only usable if you're on G+, or taking away G+ features, or anything.  If you're not on Google+ … life is exactly as it was last week.

Well, I don't like Google+. It sucks. I prefer [Some other social media tool, probably Facebook]!

I'm glad to see you've found something you (dis)like.  So this is a cogent criticism … how?

"Gazillions of people can now email each other without having been given each others' addresses!"

Well, many of those making this accusation are the same folks who say that nobody's on Google+ (which means nobody will be able to access, or even be aware of, this feature).  So, who does it actually affect.  Of course, Google+ is not the "ghost town" that some critics still want to make it out to be, though it's not as Gideonesque in its overcrowding as FB.  But even with whatever numbers it actually has, this feature assumes that person A has already found the public Google+ profile of person B to actually circle and follow (and hasn't yet been hit by the ban stick if they were already being annoying).

For the most part, once you get past the marginal conflict issues, that described added service is actually a good thing.  

"Google now lets stalkers further stalk their stalkees!"

As noted above, assuming the stalker wasn't already harassing someone through their Google+ circles (not that easy in the first place) and hadn't already been reported/banned by you, the "stalkee," then … well, it's still not really all that true. Gmail doesn't just hand over your email address, or provide a carte blanche back door to flood you with email.  They get one try at sending an email to you this way, and it's flagged as coming through Google+.  And if you, on the other end, never respond, they can never send you another email from their account.

Now, I suppose, they could create another Google account. Some people do, though Google tries to discourage that. In such a case, if you are, in aggregate, getting a lot of emails you don't like through this feature, you can … simply turn the feature off in Gmail. Getting a lot of emails you don't like? Turn the feature off. That's part of why Google sent an email out to all Google+ users, telling them how to do it (see the article below). Alternately you can even set it so that only people you have circled as well can send a single unsolicited email to you.  

And email that comes in this way gets routed into the Social folder in Gmail (if that's how you're organizing your Inbox), the same way as — well, as if that evil stalker had left a comment on one of your Google+ posts. Eek!  (If they are in your circles as well, then it comes through to your Primary folder.)

Spamming this way is just as unlikely and just as manageable.

"These sorts of things should be opt-in, not opt-out!"

Hmmmm. Well, yeah, ideally, you should give people a chance to hop on such a feature, not the other way around.  It's sort of the polite thing to do … but not necessarily the useful thing to do, for either Google or people using its services.

Let's assume this was offered as an opt-in service.  Lower-knowledge users would say, "I have to do something? I'm confused," and never turn it on. Users that are paranoid wouldn't be mollified and would still be telling everyone not to turn it on.  And thus moderately knowledgeable and capable users never would turn it on, through sloth or fear, and thus see that it's not the end of personal privacy. Which means that, as a service, it would have very little initial uptake, and very little usability.

By rolling this out with high protective walls (as noted above) and as an opt-out situation, Google doesn't get any bloodier a nose than it would have otherwise from the folks who consider Google the Evil Empire. But it has made available a rather quietly useful service that I think those people who actually find a legitimate need for it will be pleased to find available. The impact on privacy is negigible; the impact on utility is modest but real.

I'll confess I'm a bit of a Google Kool-Aid drinker, though I've been willing to criticize them when they've pulled bonehead stunts in the past. I don't see that happening here, despite the chorus of folks always willing to nay-say Google jumping all over it.