[mschuster91]

> Has google entirely given up on getting a social network?

The problem is moderation. Youtube has enough on their hands dealing with trolls, conspiracy crap, spam, Nazis/other hate speech, propaganda, pedophiles, animal/child abusers, terrorists, copyright, ... - they don't really have the resources to deal with the inevitable sausagefests in the inboxes of women and the other hate that this feature would be used if it were more widely known.

Their obscure social networks (g+, Reader, ...) are/were niche enough to not attract too many abusers of all kind.

[rubberstock]

1) With gmail, they have the foundation for good filters.

2) Google knows the identity of almost any internet user, as shown by the new recaptcha system.

3) They don't allow banned people to recreate new accounts. At least that seems to be a problem for people who were banned from the app store.

If they link this up, they should be able to keep inboxes clean. And if this fails, they just have to offer an option to switch to a whitelist approach for people whose inbox is flooded.