Google+, the latest social network and newest source of evidence

After a very long wait, Google last week launched their new social networking service, “Google+”. Coming on the heels of several disappointing Google product launches, including the spectacular failure of Google Wave, you would be forgiven for not having high hopes for Google+. However, having used the service for several days we believe Google+ might well make an impact and that, if successful, it will become an important new source of online evidence.

As we have highlighted in our recent posts on Apple iCloud and Facebook’s new Messages system, it is essential to track and understand emerging technologies so that they become an opportunity rather than an issue in identifying and collecting digital evidence. In this post we will therefore introduce Google+ and look at some of the features which could prove interesting in terms of online evidence and investigations.

So what is Google+?

If Google+ were simply a clone of Facebook or LinkedIn this would be a very short post. However, Google+ represents a different type of social network, more similar to Twitter in some respects than Facebook.

In Google’s announcement the new service was introduced as follows:

Today, the connections between people increasingly happen online. Yet the subtlety and substance of real-world interactions are lost in the rigidness of our online tools. In this basic, human way, online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it. We’d like to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software. We want to make Google better by including you, your relationships, and your interests. And so begins the Google+ project.

Google has built the Plus service around some basic elements which will be familiar from other social networks: activity streams, “friends”, friend groups, public and private messaging, user profiles and email notifications. Where Google have gone beyond existing social networks is in integrating other Google services, as currently used by the vast majority of Internet users, and adding some extra features not seen in other social networking platforms.

For an overview of these features and a brief introduction to Google+ have a look at this short video from Google. Our analysis below will make more sense if you first have an idea of what Google+ looks like and how it operates.

Accessing Google+

Google+ is accessed using the same Google accounts used for Gmail, Google Docs, YouTube, iGoogle, Picasa and other popular Google services. This means that anyone with an existing Google account can sign up for Google+ simply by adding the service to their account, after which they will use the same username and password to access Google+.

At present Plus is in a limited beta test, or what Google is calling a limited field trial. An initial seed group was hand-selected by Google and these initial users were given invitations to bring friends and colleagues into the system. This organic deployment has caused the service to grow quickly and it is now heavily populated, albeit with an emphasis on technology and media professionals.

Based on the popularity of Google’s other services the potential user base for Google+ is enormous. We wrote recently about the Facebook.com email system and the prospect of Facebook becoming the world’s largest webmail provider. Similar adoption potential exists for Google+: Gmail has a user base of around 200 million, 160 million use the Chrome web browser, Android has 100 million users and Google Apps has around 30 million active users.

If you do not yet have access to Google+ you may be able to sign up directly via plus.google.com or you could try searching Twitter for offers of invitations and details of the next open sign-up period.

Old Familiar Features

Users of other social networking sites will find many aspects of Google+ familiar, for example:

Circles

Friends on Google+ are categorised into groups called “Circles”. Users can create circles of contacts that are made up of friends, colleagues, family, sports teams etc. Google’s implementation of Circles provides a far easier method of grouping contacts compared to Facebook or Twitter lists and in theory will make it easier for users to selectively share information.

In practice it appears that most initial users are sharing very widely on Google+ and are not using Circles to limit access to their data. This over-sharing may be due to a lack of understanding about how Circles work or users may feel that Google+ content should be more public than on Facebook, with a culture more  similar to Twitter. As it stands it appears there will be few difficulties locating or accessing Google+ content in investigations, for example the system is already being used extensively for person-to-person and group communications which could be valuable as digital evidence.

Stream

Much like Facebook’s News Feed, the Google+ stream is made up of content shared by other users as well as a user’s own content. Users can post links, pictures, videos, locations etc. to their stream and choose to share with everyone, select circles or even specific people.

Friends in a user’s circles can comment on stream content and also re-share items (we will come back to re-sharing in a future post). It is also possible to email stream content to friends who are in your circles but are not yet using Google+. This is a nice way of pulling people into Google+, especially those who do not currently use any Google services.

Mobile Application

Mobile applications will be a key element of the Google+ user experience and the first such application, for Android devices, is extremely easy to use. The Google+ app pulls in all of a user’s content including the stream, circles and user profiles. When posting items from a mobile device users can add their location, similar to Foursquare or Facebook Places. Currently the only official Google+ application is for Google’s own Android devices, however Google have developed a version for the iPhone and other devices are likely to follow. In the meantime there is a basic mobile web interface which can be used from mobile browsers.

Innovative new features, familiar elements with a twist

In addition to these old familiar features Google have introduced several innovative features which set Google+ apart from other social networking sites:

Hangouts

By far the most noteworthy feature of Google+, Hangouts enable group video chat through a very simple and user-friendly interface. In developing Plus, Google recognized three main problems with video chat: it’s cost (for more than a couple of users), it’s complexity and a degree of social awkwardness. As their blog post explains:

Just think: when you walk into the pub or step onto your front porch, you’re in fact signaling to everyone around, “Hey, I’ve got some time, so feel free to stop by.” Further, it’s this unspoken understanding that puts people at ease, and encourages conversation. But today’s online communication tools (like instant messaging and video-calling) don’t understand this subtlety.

Hangouts offers a fundamentally different model of video calling compared to Skype or Google’s previous video chat feature. Instead of specifically targeting friends with a video chat request users set up a Hangout for a circle of friends or a hand-picked group of people. Anyone in that group can then enter and leave the Hangout as they please. If a user does not have time to video chat or is not in front of a webcam they can simply ignore the Hangout – a very simple distinction but one with many benefits.

Once a Hangout is in place in Google+ up to 10 people can chat at once, free of charge. The screenshot to the right is the main Hangout window. Hangout includes integrated instant messaging which allows participation from users who do not have a webcam or who cannot interact fully, e.g., in an open-plan office. Hangouts also allow sharing of YouTube videos, enabling everyone in a Hangout to watch the same YouTube video in real time – not the most appealing feature for business use but potentially an example of future functionality around co-writing, online presentations, screen sharing, etc.

As appealing as Hangouts are for users, this is feature which could lead to interesting issues in the workplace. Initial users of Google+ have quickly begun using Hangouts as a means of communication with work colleagues, for example to support a distributed team or communicate with external contacts. Since Hangouts can potentially last several hours it is easy to forget that you are participating in a hangout and it is therefore likely that hangouts will be left open without users realising. With many laptops and tablets coming with webcams as standard it is easy to imagine employees accidentally broadcasting confidential conversations or even the contents of business meetings.

Similarly it is likely that we will see business users of Google+ leaving a Hangout open when they step away from their desk or leave the office, particularly since locking a Windows PC has no effect on the stream. This could be done intentionally to eavesdrop on colleagues or accidentally, for example when suddenly called away by a colleague. In either case the effect will be to broadcast images and audio of the workplace without the knowledge or consent of others sharing the same office. Looking at the ways that Facebook has been abused, for example in workplace harassment cases, it is easy to imagine Google+ Hangouts quickly becoming relevant in employment law.

Automatic Mobile Photo Upload

Another feature with potentially huge impact for digital evidence is “Instant Upload”, a feature of the Google+ mobile apps which will automatically sync all of your mobile photographs and video to Google+. What this means is that any photographs or video taken on a mobile device with Google+ installed will be automatically uploaded to Google+, without the user selecting specific photographs or explicitly choosing to upload their data.

Photographs are automatically uploaded to an album called “Photos from your phone” and from there they can be shared with everyone, specific circles or individual users. Although this second step is required to share the photographs, anyone accessing a Google+ account, for example when someone fails to log out on a shared PC, will be able to access every photograph taken on a mobile device. Given the popularity of smartphones with high-quality cameras this could lead to disclosure of very sensitive or embarrassing photographs.

Since many business travellers use smart phones to capture business documents, contents of whiteboards, diagrams, expense receipts etc. this feature could also lead to business data being stored in Google+, potentially even when the photographs are produced on an employer-issued smartphone. This feature alone will make Google+ a high-profile target in e-discovery, whether in personal cases (divorce, personal injury, etc.) or more serious corporate lawsuits. Instant Upload will also create new issues with underage “sexting”, putting minors in the position of having distributed and arguably published child pornography as well as creating it. No doubt further legal issues will arise within the next few months, for example we could see arguments that privilege in documents or correspondence has been waived through automatic uploading to Plus.

Mobile Group Messaging

Huddle is another mobile-only feature of Google+, at least currently. Huddle enables group texting and is similar to other group chat services such as Beluga and GroupMe. Where Google has an advantage over competing services is in access to contacts and users’ social networks: relationships and contact details are already defined in Gmail, Google Reader and other Google services. Within Google+ users will be further enriching their contacts by adding them to specific circles which could then be directly accessed via Huddle, for example to contact all colleagues in a particular office or everyone who is attending a specific event.

We should point out that the naming of the Huddle feature in Google+ was one of the big “eyebrow raisers” for us, given the existence of a relatively well-known collaboration service also called Huddle. This apparent naming conflict is apparently being discussed between the two companies and could conceivably mean a change of name before the Huddle feature is made more widely available.

Sparks

This feature allows Google Plus users to pull in and sort stories and articles that they are interested in by topic. In the screenshot below you see “Featured interests” and underneath are Sparks on cycling, fashion, movies and recipes. If the user is not interested in these topics they can create their own Spark around a topic which appeals to them.

Any information that appears in the user’s Sparks can be shared within Google+ and Google are positioning the service as a way for users to always have something to talk about. Compared to other features such as Hangouts, the Sparks feature seems less than fully-formed and is likely to develop as Google+ rolls out, for example in how it overlaps with Google Reader.

Integration with other Google Services

Google’s strategy for promoting Google+ clearly relies on their existing and loyal user base. Billions of people use Google search every day and hundreds of millions use other Google products such as Gmail, Docs, Apps, Reader, Calendar, YouTube, Android and Chrome. If you use services such as Google Search, Reader or Gmail you may have noticed an updated navigation bar across the top of your browser window. If you have access to Google+, the right of the navigation bar will look like the screenshot below:

From this new toolbar a Google+ user can view notifications of Google+ activity and can directly share content that will appear in the users Stream, for example a location on Google Maps or a set of search results. This integration across all Google products will bring users back to Google+ throughout their day as they search, read mail or otherwise interact with Google services. This may also make Google+ difficult to block within corporate networks since it will be so tightly integrated with other services.

More to come

This has been a very brief initial primer on Google+, looking at some of the potentially disruptive features such as Hangouts and automatic photo upload. These new features, coupled with the tight integration with Google’s existing services, suggest that Google+ could become extremely popular, both with consumers and business users. While Facebook’s 750 million users are unlikely to move over en masse, if even a small fraction use Google+ it will become extremely important as a source of online evidence.

We plan to follow on from this post with further analysis of Google+ and have therefore created a category which you can use to track Google+ content. Between now and our next post we would appreciate your thoughts on Google+ in the comment box below, via Twitter (@CernamOwen or @CernamKaren), or via Google+ if you can find us there!

Podcast: Introduction to Google+ as a source of digital evidence

We have recorded a 30 minute podcast to supplement our blog posts on Google+. The podcast features three of our team - Owen O’Connor, Karen Reilly and Lee Kelly – discussing Google+ as a source of digital evidence. You can download the podcast via Soundcloud or listen to it on our blog.