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Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers

By | July 23, 2011, 3:29pm PDT

Summary: A number of Google+ accounts have been deleted in the last 24 hours as the new social network struggles with real name policy.

A striking number of Google+ accounts have been deleted in the last 24 hours as the new social network struggles with its community standards policy around real names - alienating and frightening the people it aims to serve.

Removed but restored through influence is Limor Fried - AKA Lady Ada / Adafruit Industries: She was recently featured on the cover of WIRED Magazine.

Google suspended Limor Fried “Ladyada” Google+ profile, no show-and-tell tonight… 

Her account has just now been mysteriously restored, though only after a groundswell of complaints. Suffice it to say, the rest of the deleted accounts will not have such well-placed advantages.

Many have now been purged and not restored.

The message I received this morning from the source in my previous Google+ article summarized it,

Google+ suspended my acct “After reviewing your profile, we determined the name you provided violates our Community Standards.”

After the next few messages repeating the same thing, it was clear that the dam had burst and Google+ is on an account suspension rampage.

Just Like Facebook’s Real Name Hypocrisy

Ex-Google employee Kirrily “Skud” Robert. Irony? The former Google employee that originally applauded Google Plus’ statements about real names had their account suspended. Kirrily “Skud” Robert writes in I’ve Been Suspended From Google+:

So today, I got off a plane this afternoon to find a pile of tweets, emails, and blog comments asking whether it was true that my Google+ account had been suspended. When I managed to get some wifi and check, it turned out that it had been.

They are asking the ex-employee for ID verification. Kirrily “Skud” Robert continues,

It then asks me for my name (uh, don’t you know that already?), email (ditto), link to my profile (ditto), and asks me to provide documentation. I can either give them a scan of my photo ID (obscuring “personal information”, whatever that means), or links to places on the web that demonstrate that this is my name.

They suggest using Facebook (the site that allows Google founder Sergey Brin to go under a pseudonym, and whose own founder has a page for his dog) as evidence. I have something better, though, because I expected this to happen and I had already collated my evidence. I linked to that page and submitted the form.

It raised a chilling spectre in the background about what happens, exactly, when Google suspends your account.

Page 2: [All Google services suspended for some; Coca-Cola's Google+ account "for sale"]  »

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Topics

Google Inc., Google Plus, Google Apps, Violet Blue, Social Business, Social Networks

Violet Blue is a Forbes Web Celeb, SF Appeal contributor, a high-profile tech personality and one of Wired's Faces of Innovation.

Disclosure

Violet Blue

I am currently freelancing part-time (only) for ReadWriteWeb for their general news blog and their Start (startup tools) channel; this was made in agreement that I would not write about anything that might conflict subjects in my blog (no sex content). I'm under contract to publisher Cleis Press for editing three more books (only) with the topics of women's/couples' erotica. I have been writing and editing books for Cleis Press for ten years on the subjects of erotica and human sexuality (guidebooks). I'm not under exclusive contract anywhere/to anyone/to anything, I have no investments.

Biography

Violet Blue

Violet Blue (tinynibbles.com, @violetblue) is a Forbes Web Celeb, SF Appeal contributor, a high-profile tech personality and one of Wired's Faces of Innovation. She is regarded as the foremost expert in the field of sex and technology, a sex-positive pundit in mainstream media (MacLife, Forbes.com, The Oprah Winfrey Show, others) and is regularly interviewed, quoted and featured prominently by major media outlets (from ABC News to the Wall Street Journal). A published feature writer and columnist, Violet also has many award-winning, best-selling books; her books are featured on Oprah's website. She was the notorious sex columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. She headlines at conferences ranging from ETech, LeWeb and SXSW: Interactive, to Google Tech Talks at Google, Inc. The London Times named Blue one of the 40 bloggers who really count.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
services21 4th Nov
This is exactly what i came here to comment on. "no clear answers" suggests that it is a mystery as to why the accounts are being removed, however in the description they tell you exactly why, people arnt using their real names which is a requirement of a google+ account.
Credit Report from the Government
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such bull.
nrek 23rd Jul
It seems that Google+ implemented the same filtering process they use for AdSense Policy violations. They're gonna get a lot more heat for this move than they do for AdSense shutdowns though, that's for sure - I'm 99% certain they'll reverse a majority of the mistakes they made & I'd be willing to bet they don't make the same mistake again.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
Linux Geek 24th Jul
@nrek
google was merely cutting spammers and impostors.
a few M$ drones are badmouthing google for that, nothing more people.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
noraadrienne@... 24th Jul
@Linux Geek There are many people, who for whatever reason CANNOT use their real ID's online. Most probably members of the GLBT community who are not out publicly to family and friends. Google's actions will just make it harder for them to have friends online who they can talk to and discuss ways to come out.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
FuzzyBunnySlippers 24th Jul
@Linux Geek
Why on Earth would you try to bring Microsoft into this, even? To garner some ill-gotten support for your incessant trolling? (Google made a huge mistake, quick, must be Microsoft fans fault...). Proof or STFU.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
Pete "athynz" Athens 25th Jul
@Linux Geek Wake up man and get out of your mommy's basement! This is NOT an Apple and Microsoft vs Google issue but Google vs it's users issue. This is GOOGLE who is deleting accounts without any sort of warning or justification and the sad fact of the matter is you STILL have to invent conspiracies that do not exist.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
Gis Bun 25th Jul
@Linux Geek : Boy you are brainwashed! Typically blame anyone or any company but google. Google can never be wrong or make a mistake. Right? Hah!
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
Linux Geek 25th Jul
@noraadrienne
You have to live with it.
A responsible American should have nothing to hide from NSA, TSA, DHS, IRS, etc.
using google+ is privilege not a right!
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
avonolszewski 25th Jul
@Linux Geek: you don't understand two things:
1. This has nothing to do with Microsoft, and quit with the immature "M$".
2. The question isn't whether or not one has anything to hide from this increasingly tyrannical government, but our 4th Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure.
Please post some more, I am looking forward to see what new idiocy you can spew.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
Cyraxote 25th Jul
@avonolszewski:

Your "4th Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure" applies only to THE GOVERNMENT. If anybody else takes your stuff, the laws regarding larceny/burglary/theft, etc., protect you, not the Constitution.

The Bill of Rights lists rights that cannot be taken away by the government. You can relinquish any of these rights by entering into a contract, such as one spelled out in the terms and conditions of a web site. If you then think there has been a breach of that contract, you can sue the other party in civil court (unless of course you agreed to arbitration when you clicked that button). I haven't read the Google+ TOS, but I'd be willing to bet that it says they pretty much own everything and that they can do whatever they want with it, within certain limits proscribed by privacy laws.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
jgm@... 25th Jul
@noraad As a gay person, I'm not buying that excuse. IF you've got to hide, then don't reveal your sexuality on Google plus the same way they're hiding their sexuality in person. You can't expect Google to open the door to frauds and scammers just for this marginal excuse.

No one needs Google plus to have online friends or discuss ways to come out. Try posting at The Advocate for that.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
viciousscuttlebutt 26th Jul
@jgm noraadrienne said LGBT. The germane letter here, regardless of your feelings about disclosure, is T. Lots of trans people out in the world don't have 'documentation' to back up the name everybody but the government and their parents know them as. Which, really, isn't that different a situation to that of professional nom-de-guerre holders, except that the issue of going by one's original legal name is a lot stickier, and the fallout from accidental disclosure can be very real and very nasty. There has to be a third way that addresses the issue of scammers but leaves room for people using a single, consistent non-legal name.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
wcb42ad 26th Jul
"google was merely cutting spammers and impostors."

Says the guy posting as "Linux Geek"...
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
Wiredog71 27th Jul
@Linux Geek

You say, "A responsible American should have nothing to hide from NSA, TSA, DHS, IRS, etc."
You may not be aware, but the US Government is not the only entity that trolls for personal data online. Many of those truly responsible Americans who guard our freedom (the Military) prefer not having information that can be used to target their families openly available online.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
jefferyshall 28th Jul
@Linux Geek

Are you nuts, have you been paying attention. Google is wiping out everyone. They suspended me for name policy violation too. Ewww... Jeff Hall... there is no way that could be my real name or I must be trying to impersonate someone REALLY famous. Get your facts straight before you comment!
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
Adrian_Wainer 29th Jul
@Linux Geek There may well be people who gave entirely accurate details about themselves but were culled by an automated system, through no fault of their own. Unless you have very specialist knowledge as to what is happening inside the Google + software, I doubt your comment which would apparently claim it was exclusively " spammers and impostors " who were culled, is well based.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
Adrian_Wainer 29th Jul
@Linux Geek

" You have to live with it.
A responsible American should have nothing to hide from NSA, TSA, DHS, IRS, etc.
using google+ is privilege not a right!. "

The argument that all those organizations would be operating to basically properly moral and legitimate objectives might be reasonably assumed but is not proven. Furthermore, even if they were, individual employees who had access to their databases might utilize the information available to them for their own criminal purposes contrary to the polices of the organization they were employed by. What also is concerning is that unless one was to suppose that the entire US intelligence operation was quite incredibly incompetent, at least one US intelligence agency and possibly several must be aware that Facebook is massively compromised by hackers and that the hackers, ( who support Islamic extremism ), have very substantive control over numerous official US Governmental Facebook pages including the White House Facebook page. The hacking situation has been continuing for months and whilst there could be legitimate reason(s) as to why the US Government is not disclosing that Facebook is hacked, I hope that there is / are legitimate reason(s) for that non-disclosure, as if there is / are not, one is getting in to some very murky territory indeed as to precisely what is the attitude of the US Government to the hacking and why.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
peachhhh@... 13th Aug
@Linux Geek this is not about security at all. it's about money and data mining everyone. google only cares about having accurate data compiled. that's where the money is, they don't give a **** about anything else. anything positive that comes from google is a by-product.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
user202 15th Sep
I'm not sure what's confusing about using your real name rather than an alias. Apparently people are just surprised that Google wasn't kidding and is cracking down on the obvious offenders. It's a social network for real people to connect to real people. If you "have" to use an alias then you're doing it wrong. You're obviously not intending to connect only with people you actually know.
Escort Napoli
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
services21 4th Nov
This is exactly what i came here to comment on. "no clear answers" suggests that it is a mystery as to why the accounts are being removed, however in the description they tell you exactly why, people arnt using their real names which is a requirement of a google+ account.
Credit Report from the Government
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
Adrian_Wainer 29th Jul
@nrek I am not one of the tech elite who has been allowed to have a Google + account, so I can't say from personal experience what is going on but my guess is that it is a new system and Google will be trying to tune it. On the other hand, Facebook is an absolutely a shambles and a disgrace at every level, hackers who support Islamic extremism are running their own command, control and analysis software on Facebook's servers and Facebook's moderation is biased in favor of ideologies such as for example Nazism, Stalinist Communism and Islamic extremism.
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What's a motto with Google?
A1batross 23rd Jul
Google's old motto: Don't be evil.
Google's new motto: Ready. Fire! Aim?
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
owlnet Updated - 24th Jul
@A1batross

Google has hidden agenda... greed has overtaken their motto.
The only thing many people were dependant on Google was search and thank goodness we don't need their service anymore. Bing does the job better now elegantly and beautifully.

The good old hotmail and yahoo is still the best free email. Only techies wearing nappies uses gmail.

I have discontinued all google services two years ago. At home banned all knows google servers and ad serveres at the router level.

At work we uses mainframe/unix/windows/sun/oracle/exchange/terradata/office/tibco/etc... We don't use a single google product.

Google has evil motive and please stay away. They are making lot of noises these days to promote their hidden agenda.

Who needs their half baked, malware infected and stolen IP products??? It has only one place, city's rubbish bin.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
softwolf42 Updated - 24th Jul
@owlnet

I left a couple of years ago after they refused to acknowledge their security holes. My account ended up being attacked by World of Warcraft account hackers (posted on the WoW forums with a toon name same as account.) They got into my account easily, and this was despite a lower/upper, number, and special character password over thirteen characters. No virus scan to this day shows anything, and all my important accounts (bank/credit) show no activity that's unusual: so it couldn't have been poor security on my part (very careful about phishing and the HTTPS login.)

It was right around the time security experts were slamming them for the holes.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
jonnormand 24th Jul
@owlnet Yah hidden agenda....to make money. How the hell do you think they give things away for free. And before you go off on well they sell private info. THEY DO NOT SELL PRIVATE INFO. They are the middle man for your info. They sell ads. They sell targeted sales. They don't sell your info. Maybe if you would pull your head out of your butt and take off the tin foil hat you would see that Google is no more evil then anyone else. There is some *** hat at Google making this policy. Prob the project manager. Does that make the entire company evil? Hell no. If Google is evil then Apple is the Devil. And Microsoft is beelzebub. Because they have just as craptastic policies in place as Google. Stop reading FUD, do some research, and THINK on your own.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
Linux Geek 24th Jul
@owlnet
are you posting from Redmond,WA or Cupertiono,CA?
take your FUD someplace else!
  • Flagged
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
Gis Bun 25th Jul
@Linux Geek : This comment coming from someone who has his own [childish] access of evil [Oracle, Apple, Microsoft]. Look at what the others are saying. Google isn't a nice company to work with.
How do you explain the problems with Google +? Some type of conspiracy by the media? A very brief glitch? Give me a break. You have been brainwashed.
You can take your FUD elsewhere. Learn to be a bit biased.
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wow buddy. You taken your meds?
Shinsengumi 25th Jul
@owlnet

Mate, for your own safety, you need to see a mental health doc. Do you hear voices? Inanimate objects speak to you? Get crazy visions, dreams while you're awake? Do you often feel threatened and watched when no-one's around?

There is medication available that can help your condition. It'll give you your life back.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
S_Deemer Updated - 24th Jul
@A1batross: Google has always been a Ready. Fire! Aim? company, and I'm glad to see them going back to their roots. Google+ is early beta, and I expect bumps in the road like this. Of course, I might not feel so generous if it were my account that was suspended....

@owlnet: Google's agenda is no more hidden than any other company: they are a business that wants to make money , just like Microsoft, Apple, IBM, GM, and even Canonical (the company behind Ubuntu Linux).

Bleats from Windows sheep are fairly pathetic, especially when it comes to "Bing Is Not Google", which was caught red-handed using Google search results after Google set a honeypot trap for Bing.

People are free to choose whatever e-mail service they wish, but clunky Hotmail and Yahoo are poor examples to compare with Gmail. At work, after years of using Linux-based mail servers, my employer switched to Exchange and forced everyone to use Outlook, which in 30+ years was the absolute worst e-mail client I have ever used, although oddly the Mac version wasn't quite as bad as the Windows version.

Choice is good, and people are free to use whatever software they prefer. In my case, that includes nothing offered by Microsoft, and I'm looking forward to the day when I can leave Facebook completely behind.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
hardeep1singh 24th Jul
@S_Deemer All the best for leaving Facebook completely. Just tell me this. What if Google disables your account the next day? lol. When you have a lot of important data, reliability matters more than the service quality.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
CopyJosh 24th Jul
@S_Deemer Thank you, I'm glad I didn't have to read too far to find a sensible comment.

@hardeep1signh People are completely free to use whatever service they want. Sure, I would have been disappointed if my G+ account was lost, but it isn't that old and o-m-g, I would have to make it again and re-invite my contacts list. Time I'll never get back.

Now, would I be reallly pissed if my other google services were lost? Why, hell yeah! But that's why there's a way for user's to make offline backups of their data. If you lose everything, it's bottom-line, YOUR fault. What if Google went offline tomorrow? Then what?

Backup. Backup. Backup. Even facebook let's you download your personal information! People are so complacent, it's as if they never watched a server die before. People are not perfect and technology doesn't even come close.
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E-Mail Client
mic1235 24th Jul
@S_Deemer Have you ever used Lotus Notes well do and tell me exchange is bad LOL.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
owlnet 24th Jul
@S_Deemer
Please educate yourself, your understanding about "Bing stealing Google results" is incorrect. Even google admitted it was a blunder. And FYI, any well-to-do enterprise stays away from Google products.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
Screaming_Chicken 25th Jul
@S_Deemer
"At work, after years of using Linux-based mail servers, my employer switched to Exchange and forced everyone to use Outlook, which in 30+ years was the absolute worst e-mail client I have ever used,"

Marketing $$$ + clueless management's "business common sense" = Microsoft Empire and shabby products forced down employee's throats.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
scottseattle 25th Jul
@S_Deemer
I couldn't agree more with everything you said!
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
SantaPagla 25th Jul
@A1batross

Quite true!
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
BillDem 25th Jul
@A1batross Yeah, Google now says, "Nuke 'em all and let the coroner sort the good guys from the bad."
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Oh man thank god its in BETA.
Stan57 23rd Jul
Oh man thank god its in BETA. You know unfinished software given to the public to bug hunt. HAHAHAHH you people are just so dumb
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Still in Beta, All your bases are belong to us
facebook@... 24th Jul
@Stan57 Time and time again, Google engineers have demonstrated an inability to understand social networks. Now that they are tying Google+ to other services, their failure in one platform will carry over to other platforms. I have an issue with Google Voice right now because they merged with my Google Apps domain. some of my Google Apps domain users can't keep their old Google Voice numbers because their system won't allow them to.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
Stan57 25th Jul
@facebook@...
Ya know what, googles claim to fame was a graphic ad-less home page. Thats it,it was an ok search engine but it has zero graphic ads.They re an Advertising corporation who wishes they were allot more
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
jonnormand 24th Jul
@Stan57 Meanwhile Apple gives you cattle unfinished software to bug hunt in a released state and just pushes out a crap load of patchs....and when hardware is in the same state? They call it version 2. Mooooo cattle.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
Pete "athynz" Athens Updated - 24th Jul
@jonnormand I was wondering when the first ABAer would decide to to bring Apple into this and attempt to spread FUD - so lay it on out and give me some examples of how Apple gives out unfinished software for the "cattle" to debug and then tell me how Google is any different.

Bet you can't without the typical ABAer insults and strawman arguments.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
Stan57 25th Jul
@jonnormand
I'm an MS zombie but Apple does it, MS does it, Linux does it,adobe does it,Real does it. Kindly name 1 software provider who has released a perfect bug less final version?
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
FuzzyBunnySlippers 25th Jul
@Stan57
Cool. So until it officially releases, no one should use it or depend on it. I'm good with that. In fact, by that time, I'll likely never use it.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
Stan57 25th Jul
@FuzzyBunnySlippers

Not what i meant. I was being sarcastic to all the crybaby's who keep forgetting something that is in beta is not finished. Im not a google fan at all but Beta is Beta no matter whos it is.
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Identity theft?
fjpoblam 23rd Jul
Identity giveth, identity taketh away. Thou shalt have no identities before G. G be not evil.
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Reconsider the image, perhaps
jmacdotorg Updated - 23rd Jul
While I agree that this issue is interesting and worth closer examination, I also wish to question the appropriateness of the accompanying image.

I assume that the author doesn't really mean to compare people getting locked from their G+ accounts to the violent and senseless mass deaths of war.
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Re: Reconsider the image, perhaps
thatguyhex 24th Jul
I came down to the comments specifically to say this.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
jonnormand 24th Jul
@jmacdotorg Don't care.
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
Andre Richards 24th Jul
@jmacdotorg: You really want to be Bono, huh?
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RE: Google Plus Deleting Accounts En Masse: No Clear Answers
FuzzyBunnySlippers Updated - 25th Jul
@Andre Richards
Man, who wouldn't want to be associated with such a person? Someone that has the background to make credible political statements, and then does so for the furtherance of peace, and helping to feed/clothe/shelter those less fortunate than themselves. Hopefully not you, right?
Wait, did you take this off topic or make an argument from such an absurd extreme, given the said topic?

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