If there’s one word that summarizes why Google’s new photo service works separately from Google+, it’s “privacy.”

The company wanted Photos to be a “private, sacred, secure place for all of [its users’] memories, without agenda,” Bradley Horowitz, Google’s vice president of streams and photos, said during a press conference at Google I/O Thursday.

That’s not aligned with the current mission for Google+, which has gone from a social network aimed at taking on Facebook to what Horowitz calls a home for “people who want to connect together around their interests and passions.”

Google Photos offers free, unlimited photo and video storage in Google’s cloud, along with tools that organize the media and make them easier to share.

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