Taking another page from Facebook's playbook, Google this week announced that it will no longer support private Google Profiles after July 31.

Taking another page from Facebook, Google this week announced that it will no longer support private Google Profiles after July 31.

"We believe that using Google Profiles to help people find and connect with you online is how the product is best used," Google said in a statement. "Private profiles don't allow this, so we have decided to require all profiles to be public."

Any profiles that remain private after July 31 will be deleted, Google said. At this point, however, the search giant said "nearly all" profiles are public. The only information you must reveal in a public profile is full name and gender; "you'll be able to edit or remove any other information that you don't want to share," Google said.

The move comes as Google is , Google+. Those who have to Google+ will see their Google+ profiles replace their Google Profiles.

Google unveiled Profiles in April 2009 to "give you greater control over what people find when they search for your name." People who searched for you on Google would see a link to your profile at the bottom of the search results. Profiles , with new controls and an enhanced look and feel. With Google+, the search giant is now more interactive, linking users and their profiles via "Circles" of friends and acquaintances.

Facebook took a similar approach with a . Even on the most private settings, non-friends can still see your name, gender, and profile picture.

At the time, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was asked why Facebook didn't just make all user information completely private and let people choose whether or not to share it with the Facebook community. But Zuckerberg essentially said that defeats the purpose of the site.

"The site has actually never worked in a way that you sign up and the only people who can see you or your information were your friends," he said. 'The reason for that is if only the people who were already your friends on the site could see your information then it would be really difficult to connect with your actual friends and actually be able to have meaningful interactions with them."

For more, see , the slideshow below, as well as and . On privacy, see