More and more businesses and organizations are carving out presences on Google+. Sometimes, Google+ and other social media are handled internally, and sometimes by external consultants or agencies, especially the initial process of setting something up. Whatever the arrangement, it is important to keep the ownership of the Google+ page internally, by ensuring that the Google+ profile that owns the Google+ page belongs to someone currently within the organization.
The ownership of a Google+ page can be transferred from one Google+ profile to another Google+ profile, provided the transferee has been a manager of the Google+ page for at least two weeks, and this transfer process needs to be initiated by the current owner of the Google+ page. There have been a few cases reported in the Google+ Discuss forum involving Google+ pages owned by the Google+ profiles of former employees who are no longer reachable, or held hostage by former employees or agencies as a bargaining chip in a dispute. As the Google+ page shares the fate of the profile that owns it, an ex-employee or a disgruntled contractor could cause real havoc, by deleting the Google+ page or posting uncomplimentary things on it, and even if not, there hangs the sword of Damocles, since the owner may choose to delete his or her Google+ profile for personal reasons and oblivious to the consequences to the Google+ page.
For non-local Google+ pages, there is no established procedure to recover them from former employees or from agencies. So long as this structure – whereby a Google+ page must be owned by a Google+ profile – remains in place, then it is important that the Google+ profile of the person or someone in the department currently tasked with maintaining the Google+ page owns it. Transfer of the ownership of the Google+ page should, for example, be a part of the handing over process, when people leave and join the firm or organization. If the initial process of creating a Google+ page has been contracted out, it would make sense to insert a clause in the agreement to the effect that ownership of the page will be transferred to a Google+ profile of someone working for the company or the organization as soon as it is practical: the contractor can act as a manager to manage the Google+ page.