[BvS]

I totally agree. Google has pretty much all my private and professionell emails already so there is little left they could find out about me through Google+ that I'm worried about. Giving much of the same data to fb as well on the other hand doubles my risk (or even worse since I have less trust in fb).

Besides competition can only be a good think. Just imagine the mobile space without Android...

[adimitrov]

> Google has pretty much all my private and professionell emails already so there is little left they could find out about me through Google+ that I'm worried about.

That's the point: why is Google interested in the social graph? They already have GMail, they can scrape twitter… what do they need G+ for?

To me, the conclusion is that they do this to crush FB, which they might perceive as a threat. Or, the other idea is that they might just want to extend their brand to encompass more of the consumer market. More adspace, and the likes…

[sidman]

I think google is well aware of their roots. They entered a market where there was already market saturation and everyone thought they were going to be crushed "who needs another search engine". Everyone got complacent and as a result google managed to grow and make a better product. Eventually they move into other areas which then allowed them to dominate the web.

Coming from those roots you know full well that its better to crush/compete or acquire companies that can do to you what you did to others many years ago, its safer then thinking your to big for anyone to catchup and become complacent (and far cheaper if you nip it in the bud).

If i was the CEO at google i could name a few companies that would make it hard for me to sleep at night and facebook is high on that list. Look at the trend, buzz - (because they couldn't acquire twitter), originally orkut ( friendster fell through and to atleast have some form of social networking product), google offers (either cause groupon's model wasnt to their liking or groupon reject the offer. Irrespective of this groupon still perceived as a threat) along with countless other startups that made cool things that could have potentially competed with googles flagship products.

I think its simply cause google knows the web game well, they know that any of these startups (and other hot web properties) can bring them down if they are not careful and its better to acquire or if not keep building competing products so they still stay the dominate power.

Now trying to compete with a product such as google+ that could in time be comparable to the currently dominating player is I guess just good for future business :)