Presumably, Google's business model is to sell information about the people who use its free services, or at least use what they learn about such users to select which advertisements to display to them.
The more detail you can persuade people to give about their identity, the better this works.

[QUOTE=Nick;389737]Presumably, Google's business model is to sell information about the people who use its free services, or at least use what they learn about such users to select which advertisements to display to them.
The more detail you can persuade people to give about their identity, the better this works.[/QUOTE]
Well it sounds bad when you say it like that ...

That is is the inevitable downside of anything that recognizes or accommodates individuality online and social networks are better positioned than most be evil. I try too hard to see a silver lining sometimes.

I'll close this with some lyrics speaking to the human condition from The Eagles song Desperado:
[QUOTE]Desperado, oh, you ain't gettin' no younger
Your pain and your hunger, they're drivin' you home
And freedom, oh freedom well, that's just some people talkin'
Your prison is walking through this world all alone

Don't your feet get cold in the winter time?
The sky won't snow and the sun won't shine
It's hard to tell the night time from the day
You're losin' all your highs and lows
Ain't it funny how the feeling goes away?

Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences, open the gate
It may be rainin', but there's a rainbow above you
You better let somebody love you, before it's too late[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=only_human;389764]Well it sounds bad when you say it like that ...

That is is the inevitable downside of anything that recognizes or accommodates individuality online and social networks are better positioned than most be evil. I try too hard to see a silver lining sometimes.

I'll close this with some lyrics speaking to the human condition from The Eagles song Desperado:[/QUOTE]
Don't worry, when I saw what he'd written just before heading out to work earlier today I could hardly believe it. I ticked him off for being cynical.:smile:

He's right of course about Google's motivations, but the real positive aspect here of people no longer having to identify as either male or female when they register with Google+ is not lost either.

[QUOTE=Brian-E;389790]Don't worry, when I saw what he'd written just before heading out to work earlier today I could hardly believe it. I ticked him off for being cynical.:smile:

He's right of course about Google's motivations, but the real positive aspect here of people no longer having to identify as either male or female when they register with Google+ is not lost either.[/QUOTE]
I needed to hear him say it because these negative consequences actually did not occur to me before my initial post. Critical thinking is aided by recognizing blinkered situations.

If the Family Research Council is concerned enough to suggest an amendment to the US constitution to state that a person's gender is the gender which they were assigned at birth, we can at least say that the issue is now being taken seriously in the USA.

[URL]http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/frc-spox-proposes-constitutional-amendment-ban-recognition-gender-reassignmenta[/URL]

[QUOTE]Family Research Council spokesmen Peter Sprigg and Craig James of the Family Research Council have an innovative new plan to promote limited government: pass a constitutional amendment regulating gender identity!
[...]
James even suggested that conservatives might have to consider launching a movement to pass a constitutional amendment regulating gender identity, asking Sprigg, “Might Congress — might there be a need for us to have a constitutional movement, an amendment, to identify a person’s sex: it is what you are at birth?”[/QUOTE]Obviously rightwingwatch.org has its own political colours. So can anyone explain to me what the Family Research Council's position is and what it sees as a problem with recognising that someone's gender might not be the one they were assumed to be at birth?

[QUOTE] So can anyone explain to me what the Family Research Council's position is and what it sees as a problem with recognising that someone's gender might not be the one they were assumed to be at birth? [/QUOTE]

I am only guessing, but I suspect that they are roping in everything under their Homophobia banner. This stance could also involve allegations of "interfering with a divine plan."

Elton John and David Furnish [URL="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-30568634"]marry each other[/URL], despite Elton not being gay.

(British readers, at least, will understand satire expressed in the final clause.)

[QUOTE=xilman;390658]Elton John and David Furnish [URL="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-30568634"]marry each other[/URL], despite Elton not being gay.

(British readers, at least, will understand satire expressed in the final clause.)[/QUOTE]
Any pointers for those of us who don't understand the satire?:smile:

[QUOTE=Brian-E;390668]Any pointers for those of us who don't understand the satire?:smile:[/QUOTE]A certain libel case from the 1980s

[QUOTE=Brian-E;389866]If the Family Research Council is concerned enough to suggest an amendment to the US constitution to state that a person's gender is the gender which they were assigned at birth, we can at least say that the issue is now being taken seriously in the USA.
...
obviously rightwingwatch.org has its own political colours. So can anyone explain to me what the Family Research Council's position is and what it sees as a problem with recognising that someone's gender might not be the one they were assumed to be at birth?[/QUOTE]

This problem is easily solved, Just ask for birth sex and current assigned sex.

[QUOTE=xilman;390670]A certain libel case from the 1980s[/QUOTE]
The libel case I really remember was that of Jason Donovan in the early 1990s. That one centred around Donovan's sexual orientation, and it was a sign of those times that that could be a subject involving an enormous damages payout.

In Elton John's case, it seems he actually came out publicly as bisexual in 1976, and gay in 1988, which was very early days for a celebrity in the UK in those days. I certainly don't blame him for keeping his sexual orientation under wraps before that in the climate of that time.

The one slight hypocrisy issue I have with his marriage now (a conversion from his civil partnership) is that he publicly voiced his opinion against equal marriage just a few years ago, saying that civil partnerships were sufficient. But again, times and attitudes change: even the LGBT campaigning group Stonewall was, right up until 2010, taking the line that the Civil Partnership Act was sufficient for full equality.