A WebmasterWorld member discusses an interesting scenario regarding Google's requirement to have you log into your Google account when you access any service tied to Google. For example, if you have a Gmail account, you're likely also posting onto Google Groups with the same identity. What would happen, then, if you needed (for whatever reason) to share your login to Google Groups with someone -- say, a coworker? You'd be giving them access to everything else tied to that Google account.
The issue is not that simple and many users, especially those who use Google for various business purposes, opt to have 5-6 email accounts rather than one single account where the identity can be confused. If you have to, you can use different browsers (Windows users can now use Firefox, IE, Opera, and Safari!). And if you're paranoid, anonymous proxies are the way to go because of no IP tracing.
Many forum members point out that Google isn't trying to make your life difficult. It just makes life easier to consolidate logins than to have to worry about logging in and saving different usernames and passwords again and again. (Of course, the other argument, which is obviously presented, is that Google wants to track every move you make...)
Regardless, the desire for Google to have such uniformity is obviously causing concern among forum members who feel that any of their information can be accessed simply because they're almost always logged into Gmail.
Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.
