A Guide to Google+ Privacy and Information Control

Google+ is the new social networking kid on the block, and one of the main reasons so many people are interested in the service over Facebook is Google+'s proclaimed focus on protecting users' privacy. Whether you're a new Google+ user or you're already a pro, understanding how to control your information on the site can make you feel much more at ease on the social network. Here's the lowdown on Google+'s privacy controls, including a few of the more buried settings you'll want to know about.

This guide will take you through setting up Google+'s circles with an emphasis on how they work from a privacy perspective, how to control what others can see about you on your profile, your options for selectively sharing posts with others, and some miscellaneous settings you'll want to tweak—like only allowing friends to start Huddles with you.

A note on pseudonymity: Google has taken a strong and, I think, awfully mistaken stance on not allowing people to use Google+ with a pseudonym. While this is definitely a privacy issue, it falls outside of this post's purpose of explaining how to use Google+'s privacy settings. Kee Hinckley, a Consulting CTO for Somewhere.com and Lead Architect at Zinc.tv, has written acompelling and thorough post on the subject, and hopefully Google is listening and will rectify this issue

Google Realtime Search is coming back soon, and it will include data from Google+

Google Realtime Search is coming back soon, and it will include data from Google+ and other social sources.

Realtime Search was, until last month, the search giant’s method of delivering relevant data from Twitter, Facebook and other social media services in real time. Whenever a major current event made headlines — such as Osama bin Laden’s death — Google Search would start displaying tweets and Facebook updates from users talking about the recent developments. It made Google‘s search engine more relevant during major world events.

It didn’t last, though. Google took Realtime Search down in July after it failed to come to an agreement with Twitter for continued access to Twitter‘s firehouse of data. Without a constant stream of tweets, the product was far less useful.

“The value the product was providing was not enough,” Google Fellow Amit Singhal said about the decision to turn off the feature during a search panel in Mountain View, California.

When asked about if or when Realtime Search would return, Singhal responded by saying the Google Search team is “actively working” on bringing the product back. He added that the team was experimenting with adding data from Google+ and other sources. It seems as if Google doesn’t believe it needs Twitter data to deliver a compelling real-time search offering.