4 ms·
To use it, do I still need to share my real identity with Google? With the world? If so, is that just policy or is it enforced somehow?
by hackuser 10y ago
To use it, do I still need to share my real identity with Google? With the world? If so, is that just policy or is it enforced somehow?
- newscracker 10y agoThe real names policy on Google+ was long removed. You can use any pseudonym and don't have to share your real identity. In this respect, it's definitely better than Facebook.
- hackuser 10y agoThanks. I should have asked above: Do they my phone number (ostensibly for 2FA)?
- dredmorbius 10y agoYou will be continuously nagged for it. If you use the Android platform, I suspect that Android device UUIDs may be transferred via Chrome or App usage. This has some benefits -- Google have quite good login-pattern tracking, and alert for logins on new devices (or devices not used for a time). OTOH, it is also, quite obviously, a mechanism for tracking patterns of use across IPs, locations, devices, etc.
- newscracker 10y agoIt's not necessary to provide your phone number if you don't want to. It does not force you to do that, although for account recovery purposes (getting access back to an account if it's compromised), it will bother you once in a while to add your phone number as a recovery mechanism. I see this request coming with plain Gmail and Yahoo Mail too quite often, and just choose to skip it whenever asked.
- dredmorbius 10y agoOfficially, not since July of 2014 -- two years ago. Unofficially, pseudonyms were often, though not always, tolerated before that. http://www.zdnet.com/article/google-reverses-real-names-policy-apologizes/ http://www.zdnet.com/article/google-reverses-real-names-poli...