Google is determined to make its social network the most popular and in doing that it has gone to lengths some competitors in the business haven’t. It is the case of the company’s latest decision, to allow teens to join Google+ under extra safety precautions.
On Thursday, Google announced it has decided to allow open access to its social network for all users age 13 or older. By taking on this step, Google+ is now matching Facebook and MySpace policies. Down the road, this will only mean that Google+ will undergo a boom in profile activations and volume of visualized pages every day. Particularly since Google says that the decision was determined by the strong demand coming from teens.
Thus, Google+ will be open to teens age 13 or older. But not all teens get to have a Google+ account. Teenagers in Spain, South Korea and Netherlands will have to wait a little longer, because of higher age requirements in their countries.
Bradley Horowitz, Google Product VP for Google+, explained: “We want to help teens build meaningful connections online. We also want to provide features that foster safety alongside self-expression. Today we’re doing both for everyone who’s old enough for a Google account”.
Earlier this week, Google announced it will be updating its privacy policy. Starting March 1st, Google will compile about 60 different policies in one, which will cover everything from Google Search, to Gmail, YouTube and Google+.
Based on these changes, Google thinks it will be enough to keep teens secure online. The new privacy policy allows Google to track the activities of teens as they use the company’s service. The company will be able to control who can contact teens online as well as implement restrictions on group video chats.
A Google+ spokeswoman told PC Magazine that “traditional services restrict teens from using desirable functionality, which gives them an incentive to misrepresent themselves”. With Google+ it will be easier to “create an environment that encourages teens to represent themselves on Google+ as they do in real life”.
At the moment Google+ has 90 million users and it still has to go a long way to approach Facebook’s 800 million users. However, that might happen sooner than expected.
