27 May 2015

Untangling interconnected settings for Google, YouTube, Yahoo - privacy concerns still important

Interconnected settings for Google, YouTube, Yahoo are far from private

"Don't be evil."
- Google motto

Why is privacy important to people?
This is a kind of heady subject, too big to take on
in one fell swoop.  First, I've used YouTube for
years, to watch '80s music and other geeky stuff
that I'd rather not advertise publicly.

I'm not interested in sharing social media with
people in a non-anonymous manner.  I've read that
there is a not insignificant percentage of
relationships now left smouldering by Facebook. I've
experienced a bit of that personally. We value our
ability to manifest what represents us in the public
domain. The internet, social media in particular,
can make that very difficult - and we're not always
there to control the context - because context and
true meaning have become needlessly complex and
easily misinterpreted in these spheres. Before I
forget - couples should discuss and strongly
consider keeping their social media profiles
private. 

Me?  I've been in trouble numerous times:

- Deleting a public comment by a girlfriend that I
found embarrassing;
- Changing relationship "status", seen by all, when
it was not executed with Blue Angels level of
precision;
- and a few other faux pas, new and untested in the
pioneering of internet etiquette. 

Like the clothes we wear, it's nice to have control
over what we say to the world, and thus have a say
how we are perceived.  Now, consider the acquisition
of YouTube by Google, and the labyrinthine
engineering of options, and options on options,
settings on settings, to manage what is transmitted
about ourselves. Like I often say, "How many clicks,
how much digging does it take?" - to get the
simplest thing done?

Take a look at some people showing their
frustrations:

--------------------------------------------------
After setting my playlists to private,one of them is
still public. Why?

daev9814 said:
 YouTube's handling of playlist privacy is terrible.
Before the site got a makeover, my playlists were
private. After the makeover, they had been made
public. So I made them private - again. They were
still showing up in public search results when
searching for my username. So I deleted them
completely. They're STILL showing up in public
search results. What gives?
Gaiwa said:
Same problem here. If I change my viewlist/playliste
to private it shows them as private only in the
"Edit Playlist" Menu. If I save and go back to
"Manage my playlists" everything is public again.
The "Edit Playlist" for one single playlist always
shows me it is private (they all are supposed to
be), but is is not, it is public. I have no idea
what to change anymore....


Stacy:
My issue currently is that google+ for my business
page has linked and hijacked my old personal Youtube
account. So now my old youtube's name has changed to
my business google + page name and is connected to
the google+ business account so that the videos from
my personal and home subscriptions are showing on my
business page. How do I disconnect my youtube from
my Google+ and go back to my original Youtube
account name? I then need to create a separate
youtube (business) channel that I will connect to my
business google+. I cannot find out how to do this.
Google sends me to Youtube, youtube doesn't respond
to me and since this is my business, I need someone
to talk to asap.
PLEASE help
--------------------------------------------------

Today, while messing around with my Yahoo email, I found that it somehow sucked in my very arcane and unused YouTube email address; my Yahoo email is actually the login for my YouTube account; from my YouTube account, a Google+ account was created.  This is disturbing.  You can't manipulate one without being transferred in circles to another, and it's virtually impossible to adjust privacy settings (keeping video playlists private doesn't work, after a few hours of experimentation). I might just delete it all.

There's nothing inherently embarrassing about the playlists I've made; but I made them for me, and not for the world.  I'd still like to have some say in the Information Age what I say about me.

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