[tsycho]

First of all, how credible is a Path PM's opinion on the "camp stove" example? Conflict of interest, anyone? Did Vic G or anyone official at Google say that's going to happen?

IMHO, what's more likely to happen is: You search for a camp stove, and your G+ friend has written a _public_ review of one, and your personalized search results show your friend's review as well. Personally, I would find that quite helpful since I can now contact my friend directly about this, but even if you don't, why not disable personalized results for yourself?

[kill9]

That's a quote from "a former G+ product manager". His credibility is beside the point anyway... this was a hypothetical feature mentioned in the article that conveniently illustrated a potential privacy concern.

(To your prediction of how this feature might play out in reality I would say that you are probably right, but also that I don't give two shits about what my friends buy OR about what they publicly review.)

What we know for certain is that Google is aggressively pushing its users onto G+ and that is the real heart of the problem. It's a bait-and-switch. I have no intention of using Google as a social network and I have no guarantees that I will be able to opt out of current or future features. The writing is on the wall -- Google will be social. That upsets some people.