Since I didn't actually want one, a private one, which was effectively empty, was the next best thing.
When I saw this message yesterday, I saved the few "Buzzes" I made last year, and deleted my profile.
How nice it is of Google to decide by fiat to impose their standard on everybody else without consultatin (I know Eric Schmidt is on record as saying that he doesn't believe in privacy, here we have a prime example).
However, at least they are handling this better than the way Facebook does. If this was Facebook they would have (a) just done it without giving advance warning and (b) would have flipped everyone who was private over to public.
At least Google is deleting the accounts rather than outright exposing the info.
As far as I can tell, they are deleting profiles, not accounts.
"Deleting your public profile won't delete your Google Account." http://www.google.com/support/profiles/bin/answer.py?hl=en&#...
You could do that by just showing your screen to your vetted people, though, I suppose.
(b) Upon noting (a), I filled out a private profile in anticipation that Google would be rolling out further mechanisms to share private profiles with certain contact groups.
We will have to strictly rely on news reader to share information between ourselves.
Not everyone wants or needs to be in social network where they do not control their own privacy.
Google should stop chasing facebook and focus on keeping their search relevant.