Google Plus Shares Your Pictures with The World

Just a short blurb today about Google + and how it compromises your security.

I've had the unfortunate situation today of having to sign up for Google + for work.

In the small print, Google lets you know that signing up for Google + will automatically make all of your Picassa pictures public.  And while they tell you to change the status on these, they don't tell you how very well.

First of all, the new address for getting to your pictures (since Google has removed all of the easy to navigate links) is:  www.picasaweb.google.com.  Once you sign up for Google +, though, the address changes to www.plus.google.com/photos.

Thanks, Google.

Here's how to keep your pictures private:

1. Navigate to your pictures album page.
2. Click on the Settings.  Now, if you have Google Plus, this is located to the left under the Home menu.  If you don't have Google Plus, this is located on the right just under the generic, non-labeled gear icon.
3. Navigate to the Photos section and uncheck everything.  If you do have Google +, then make sure you really look at all the settings.  Every menu has at least one item in it where Google is going to share information with others (you just need to overlook the verbose, grammatically incorrect menu items).  For example, if you mention someone in a post, Google + sends that person an email.  You can also prevent people from tagging your photos, though they can still tag theirs with your name.  There is a menu item for receiving an email if someone tags you in a photo- I think that's a good one to leave on...just so you can yell at the person to knock it off.  One of the scary menu items is "Google Awesome" photos, where Google + scans through your pictures and compiles new pictures based on the content of the photos you have in your albums- UNCHECK that one.

Once you're done playing with this stupid service, you can delete your Google+ account by going to https://plus.google.com/downgrade and agreeing to the terms.  You will notice that deleting your Google+ account DOES NOT affect your Google Account.