Google To Retire Private Google+ Profiles On July 31

As Google expands its Google+ social network to more people, the final outlines of the program begin to take shape. Here’s one important detail, disclosed on the Google Plus help page: there will be no private Google+ profiles. If you choose to keep your profile private, Google will simply delete it after July 31, 2011.

From the Google+ help section:

“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 and gender are 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.”

This makes for a crucial difference between Google+ and Facebook; on Facebook, you can have a completely private profile, which won’t even come up in Google’s search results or even Facebook search results (for people who aren’t your friends). On the other hand, to use Google+, you will at least need to make your full name and gender public, meaning people will be able to find you via Google+.

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