Is Google actively encouraging social, by deleting private Google Profiles on July 31?

Do you remember the Yahoo hoaxes “officially announcing” they’ll delete your account at a specific date unless you send “this” message to your entire address book or roster? Well, I never thought somebody would take it serious, until now: Google will actually delete your “Google Profile” if, at 31st of July, it’s still marked as “private”.

If you currently have a private profile but you do not wish to make your profile public, you can delete your profile. Or, you can simply do nothing. All private profiles will be deleted after July 31, 2011.

The difference between a public and a private profile is what common sense is saying: in both cases you may have linked your other Google services or third parties’ to your Google Profile, but when you marked the profile as “private”, nobody would have access to these other inputs. For example, if I linked my private Picasa to my Google Profile and thus also marked my profile as private, nobody would be able to see my Picasa pictures, nor any other content I might have linked to my profile.

The Next Web is saying this is “active encouragement”.

I say it’s a dumb opt-out solution to their badly built social infrastructure.