> Facebook is addressing a strong desire for privacy by its users<p>This is some serious horseshit by Arrington. Only a fool would believe this[1]. Facebook's entire history is anti-privacy from the very beginning (here's a nice list: <a href="http://pleasedeletefacebook.com" rel="nofollow">http://pleasedeletefacebook.com</a>) and they do their business a disservice by not collecting as much as possible. Facebook users don't care about privacy; it's the reason they still use the service even after every privacy violation.<p>Trying to spin this into a Facebook vs Google match is absurd. Facebook wants all of your data just as much as Google. They're called Big Data for a reason and information is their currency.<p>1. <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7675962" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7675962</a>
Arrrrrington is off his rocker again. Harkening the death of Google and Google+ as if he'd spent enough time around there to know what he's talking about.<p>He doesn't even bother researching the technology he's writing about<p>> "I don’t know the details"<p>Yet he tries to pass it off as some miraculous milestone. It's an interesting feature set that I've never thought about before, and I've never seen envisioned before. An identity platform that doesn't reveal your identity. Bringing all the joys of single sign-on without any of the permissions.<p>But he then uses it as an excuse to complain and whine about Google+, which while some of us have reasons against it concerning anonymity and privacy, remains a brilliant identity platform that's done wonders for any service it's been integrated in - at least for me personally.<p>There's a reason I don't have Uncrunched in my RSS reader anymore, and it has a LOT to do with how he's completely let his emotions overrule any journalistic integrity he might have once had.
Doesn't matter which large company "gets" it -- what we really need is a good, decentralized, easy to use, open, optionally-anonymous identity system on the web. Easy-to-use being the key feature.<p>Until that happens, whether it's FB or Google or whomever else, we're stuck as the "product, not the consumer" (as Arrington correctly puts it).
I'd enjoy being able to give my users a line-item veto on permissions. It isn't really difficult to code around missing data, so I'd just assume treat it as a request up front.
Why does anyone care about this?<p>Both of these companies have access to your data if you use their service.<p>Let me repeat that.<p>If you use Facebook, Facebook can use and do whatever with your data.<p>If you use Google's services, Google can use and do whatever with your data.<p>If you don't want them to use your data don't use their service.<p>This is getting redundant people.
I hate this "gets it" mentality that gets brought into the picture anytime any product can be described with the word "social" in the description. It's a product, and taking the Hank Hill approach, the quality of the product should be the priority.
<p><pre><code> No one uses Google+, but the whole Internet has an account there.
</code></pre>
Author can't be so ignorant and supremely egotistical.<p>A friend of mine uses Google+ to post pictures. He has over a million views and an audience that he wouldn't have otherwise.
Am I the only one who feels a real mental disconnect with the people complaining about Facebook? I read interviews by developers there, where it's pretty evident that they have reasonable perspectives (i.e. they aren't evil), then I see a barrage of ridiculous vitriol. I then go to all the sites where people list "why Facebook is evil", and all I can find is misinformation, opinion, and minor understandable things blown out of proportion.
A Google employee has recently posted this: <a href="https://plus.google.com/+BrianWhite1/posts/T56nDLcMHVk" rel="nofollow">https://plus.google.com/+BrianWhite1/posts/T56nDLcMHVk</a>
Google is a dinosaur, it's sad but at this point it's pretty clear that's how it is. The top executives are detached from the way that the internet is used / moving towards. They grew up before an era where internet communication is the dominant form of communication. I hope they do great things with AI and wearables but in internet communications they are done.
Is this guy paid to write bullshit? WTF is he talking about? Facebook got its ass reamed by the FTC because it was retroactively changing its privacy terms, and making previously private user data, public. They are not "motivated by the privacy demands of their users."<p>OP is a moron.
Arrington is still around? When will he go away? Thankfully techcrunch is mostly irrelevant lately, but ugh seeing Arrington posts is enough to last awhile.