RIP, Google: long ailing and finished off by a security bug

There was a time when you could get the smartest people at Google to do the stupidest things you could imagine by getting Yahoo to do them first; thankfully that era ended -- only to be replaced by an era in which every stupid thing Facebook did became a bucket-list item for Google management.

The peak of this was when Google set out to create a social network and tasked every googler with making it a success. The company decided to call this network Google+, and decided that the longstanding, widely used plus-sign (which historically was used in search queries to mean "must have" as in +cory +doctorow) would be unilaterally repurposed for use in its social network.

Googlers' bonuses were tied to their ability to integrate Google+ into every product Google offered, creating an ever-tightening noose around Google users who had no interest in using G+.

To make matters worse, Google decided to ape Facebook's privacy-invading, nonsensical "real names" policy, insisting that every user use their legal name and putting Google in the unenviable position of deciding (for example) when a trans person could stop using their deadname, or when an indigenous person's name was "real" enough for use, or when people fleeing domestic violence could use an alias.

By the time Google+ rolled out, there was already nascent discontent with Facebook. Google+ offered all the downsides of Facebook, but with fewer of the people you wanted to connect with.

Years later, G+ is a sad also-ran. What's more, the company just discovered an extremely grave bug in the system - -- that would have allowed for serious privacy violations. Read the rest