From the get-go, Google has said that Google+ does not support non-human entity accounts and that anyone using Google+ for this purpose risks having their profile deleted. Those weren’t empty threats, Google has already started deleting the profiles of several organizations that had set up shops.
Google is also providing more details on the business and organizations pages, which Google+ will get in the coming months.
“We have been watching Google+ take shape over the last week and we’ve seen some really great companies get involved. But frankly we know our product as it stands is not optimally suited to their needs,” Google’s Christian Oestlien wrote.
At the moment, Google+ profiles are strictly designed for regular users. They are asked for their names, birthdate and gender.
At the same time, information and tools that may be useful to businesses, brands, NGOs are not available. Google is working on this though.
“We have a great team of engineers actively building an amazing Google+ experience for businesses, and we will have something to show the world later this year,” he announced.
Several companies and publications already created profiles, before Google made it clear that there is no support for business pages.
Initially, Google didn’t really know how to handle this, but it didn’t rule out having to delete this type of profiles.
But now, Google has started deleting non-user profiles from Google+, very soon after it announced that it would take this measure.
“In the meantime, we are discouraging businesses from using regular profiles to connect with Google+ users. Our policy team will actively work with profile owners to shut down non-user profiles,” Oestlien explained.
Already, profiles for publications like Mashable or The Next Web are gone and others are probably going to be deleted soon.
But Google is working with a handful of organizations to test the business pages as they are being created and the company is asking for volunteers.
“Over the next few months we are going to be running a small experiment with a few marketing partners to see the effect of including brands in the Google+ experience. We’ll begin this pilot with a small number of named partners,” Google explained. via Softpedia