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Why Google cares if you use your real name

106 points by davewiner 15y ago

napierzaza 15y ago
Kind of obvious, I just hope this kind of idea is picked up by the media. It's also why Google+ has some very tricky rules in regards to what becomes public on your profile, because publicly indexed information can be used and monetized more than the private information. That's why Google has made all the "revolutionary" platforms that it has been, and why Schmidt says so many scary things that should make us feel sick. Facebook's doing the same thing though, Google and them are both selling our identities, interests, social connects and other data to the highest bidder. But the handsets are cheap.
jvc26 15y ago
Doesn't look like the URL is functioning ...
nodata 15y ago
What a terrible article, it completely misses the point that for many people there is no such thing as having a Single Real Name.
- burgerbrain 15y ago
  Uhhh, did you read this article?
  - nodata 15y ago
    Yes. It says "Simply put, a real name is worth more than a fake one." and we've already decided that a single real name doesn't exist for many people.
    - burgerbrain 15y ago
      You are missing the point entirely. This isn't a justification at all, it is an explanation. The article asserts that they can monetize single real names. Some people don't have those, but if Google thinks that they can't monetize that, why should they care? That is what the article is saying. It didn't miss a thing, it just didn't spell it out in simple english for you. And for the record, I do not agree with the article that this is the cause of Google's actions.
      - nodata 15y ago
        Look again at the other post from yesterday - the post that talks about how Google realises that there may be a case for not having a single name to rule them all, and that they were looking at way of making the alternative model work, i.e. make money for them.
        burgerbrain 15y ago
        The article is suggesting that they at least initially did not see a way to monetize it. The topic article is not faulty in the way you suggest.
Vivtek 15y ago
Oy. Maybe if you have a relatively Googleable name like "Dave Winer", you could expect your theory to hold. But GOOGLE SHOULD KNOW BETTER. Try correlating my name (Michael Roberts) with anything just by name. It can't be done. There are an estimated 5589 Michael Robertses in the US (howmanyofme.com) and several of us in any given town. And my legal first name is actually James, so you can't correlate that with airline reservations anyway (thanks so very much, TSA). No, Google really didn't think this through here. And the "hoo-ha" (I'm not sure that means what you think it means) is about more than that. It's about a ToS that says "use the name your friends know you by" - often a pseudonym. Google will still delete your account with no recourse. (This even omits the real-world examples of people who don't fit Google's Anglo naming assumptions - the real world really does consist of about 20% impossible hacks, and you'd think Google, of all companies, would get that, but they seem not to.) Of course, Google's famous omission of any discernible customer service or appeals process only plays into this even more. No, it's a trainwreck. Google is responding well, and it's true it's still actually a beta - but pseudonymity is important, and the ability to correlate with banking records is broken anyway. So why stick with it?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- nobody_nowhere 15y ago
  Lastname + zip is more than accurate enough to drive a lot of value for advertisers. It doesn't take a lot of precision to improve advertising efficiency. Link a creditcard to your google account and you're marketer's wet dream.
- davewiner 15y ago
  There are lots of other signals to triangulate by. Name is just one and the primary one. BTW, there are lots of people with my name, exact same spelling, in the US.
  - Vivtek 15y ago
    That's nice. The factor is about 5000. Census records are used for howmanyofme.com (1990 and 2000) - there were 423,777 Robertses versus 2,406 Winers, and there were over 4,000,000 Michaels versus 82,000 Daves. I'm sure there are "lots" of people with your name in the US, but you aren't named Michael Roberts. Trust me. I am unGoogleable.
dlss 15y ago
> There's a very simple business reason why Google cares if they have your real name. It means it's possible to cross-relate your account with your buying behavior with their partners. The idea that google somehow wants track your behavior through your name is laughable. Do a facebook search for your name. Do you see all those results? Those are all false positives that google would have to build algorithms to try and weed out. ... or (assuming they actually wanted to track users in this way), they could just use the unique-by-definition email address you registered with, or the unique-by-definition credit card number you used in google checkout, or get that information from AdWords partners when they track conversions ... Since there are a thousand better (and less noticeable/public) ways to track users, we can safely ignore google wanting to "cross-relate your account with your buying behavior" as a possible motivation.
hn_decay 15y ago
Google knows who you are. Google knows where you've been on the web, and what you're doing. They long have. Google told me on my own + page several of the pseudonyms I've used across the web. The "Google wants to sell you" bit is not insightful. It's not a unique perspective. It's the same superficial analysis we see with every single thing Google does. Google wants an online community of real people, with what that entails. There is a long and documented trail of discussions on this topic regarding the downsides of anonymity. Yet there are also upsides, and if someone wants an anonymous discussion forum that supports that, there are plenty of options for that. But it is wholly inconsistent with the goals of Google+. Alas. Whatever Google does, just say it's because they want to sell you out. It's a clean, pat answer.
- orangecat 15y ago
  Google told me on my own + page several of the pseudonyms I've used across the web. Where exactly? I don't see anything like that on mine, and I'm curious whether Google knows who orangecat is. (Of course they may anyway even if they don't tell me).
- jerf 15y ago
  "It's the same superficial analysis we see with every single thing Google does." Superficial isn't a synonym of "wrong". Sometimes the superficial explanation is the correct one. Sometimes people expend a lot of cognitive effort looking for the complex, nuanced answer when the superficial one was correct all along. And sometimes not, of course. But I would argue that the idea that Google isn't giving one thought to how much money Google+ is going to make them is the bizarre position, absurd on its face. I'd also observe that any given action does not need to have one motive. Google can want a "real community" (also because a "real community" is more likely to be active, cause people to spend more time on Google+, and thus see more ads and generate more ad revenue), and also want to have better information with which to target you. There's no contradiction, and there's no way in which one is the "real" motivation and the other is false, they're all just mixed together. There's a whole lot of people here trying to draw lines about what's the real motivation and what isn't when there's no room to draw the lines in the first place.
jonknee 15y ago
Dave's been for a long time the tech version of an old man screaming at kids to get off his lawn. Matching your "Real Name" to advertising partners isn't at all why Google wants your "Real Name". They want it because it makes for a better social network. Most Gmail users provide a "Real Name" so Google already had hundreds of millions and so far as I know, hasn't decided to hook up with my grocery to somehow advertise better to me. They do use interest data, but it's one-click to opt-out of (http://www.google.com/privacy/ads/ http://www.google.com/privacy/ads/) and knowing someone's name adds little to being able to target ads.
- RexRollman 15y ago
  I suspect you are correct. I think Google wants G+ to be a useful way for people to find people they know, as that is the sole reason many people are on Facebook.
  - rjd 15y ago
    I think it has more to do with Facebook and Microsoft taking away quite significant parts of the online ad revenue. Facebook is economically destroying Google in terms of display ads. Companies don't have loyalties to either company, they just go where the best value is. Currently thats Facebook. Google developed an attention economy, and Facebook has improved it.
- raganwald 15y ago
  Your comment reads better without the Ad Hominem. You have an opinion, it differs from his, that’s fine, and that’s all you need to say.
  - jonknee 15y ago
    I don't think it's a stretch to characterize Dave Winer as a curmudgeon. He has made valuable contributions and I respect him, but he's still a curmudgeon.
    - raganwald 15y ago
wisty 15y ago
I doubt it. Google wants your real name so it's easier for your semi-friends to find you, and drive "engagement". I'm pretty sure my classmate from high school won't find me I sign up under the name "wisty". Which would be a mixed blessing, but very bad for business. OK, there are a few internet celebrities who are best know by "handles", but they aren't the bread and butter of social networks.
- brudgers 15y ago
  The fact that Google wants your semi-friends to find you is not a counter argument to the point that your real name is more valuable. Indeed, it points to a positive feedback loop which further increases the value of requiring real names, i.e. Google gets a map of your social graph which only contains real names.
- maratd 15y ago
  This has never been a problem for Facebook. People find other people through common friends, not by searching for names.
  - jcampbell1 15y ago
    Correct me if I am wrong, but Facebook has the same policy and deletes suspiciously named accounts as well.
    - wccrawford 15y ago
      They technically have the same policy, but they don't seem to be proactive like Google is. Also, Facebook doesn't use your name to find your friends, they use your friends list to suggest their friends might be yours as well. Reason and method are both different.
      - notahacker 15y ago
        In the beginning Facebook was far more restrictive in requiring a university email as well as a real name to sign up. If it had instead launched based on an open invitation system and not policed pseudonymous accounts then marketers and trolls would have ensured it remained an insignificant niche site. If anything, real names were far more critical to Facebook's success than they might be to Google+
Dwatson783 15y ago
Yeah, this article is off. The idea that Google + would then take your name and sell it to it's partners while linking to its DFA data is an incredible breach of PII and they would be hit hard by the government immediately. As someone who works with these data feeds and digital marketing, I know it's not what they're aiming for and that it would be in violation. As others have pointed out the effort is in better matching and spreading of social circles. In doing so, Google + becomes a more widely used tool and, the relationships that a user has with others increases. Couple that with the idea of circles and future search, discussion and buying habits of the user, Google can then understand the influences different parts of the network have on the individual and tailor the advertising a user sees to the messages coming from the influential networks.
- sethg 15y ago
  They don’t have to sell the information to their partners. They could, for example, buy information associating last names and ZIP codes with estimated income levels, and then tell advertisers, “if you pay us $X we will put your ad on those Google+ pages where, according to our statistical estimate, at least 75% of the readers make over $100K.” The advertisers wouldn’t actually know the names of the people that Google forwards the ad to; they would just get the clicks.
  - Dwatson783 15y ago
    There are a number of ways for Google to do that based on network, searches and other information that give them a high statistical probability of being right without having to go through the trouble of actually matching names with lists. That's a capability that goes right into retargeting/remarketing lists and certain ad servers.
Astrohacker 15y ago
A screen name is no less "real" than a legal name.
- lutorm 15y ago
  To the extent that you can change it at will without effort, yes it is.
  - Astrohacker 15y ago
    What does that matter? If people know you by your screen name, that's a real name. Legal names are just nick names that are recorded by the government.
    - lutorm 15y ago
      It matters because if people can change names at will, they are effectively anonymous. And anonymity can bring out the worst in people.
maurycy 15y ago
I think that's illegal in many European countries to match the ads so closely, so it is unlikely that Google's had this in mind[1]. In my opinion, the actual reason is slightly gentler. There is a lot of research that says that people behave more responsibly under their real names. (I'm short on time right now, but please let me know if you're unable to find the papers within five minutes.) [1]. There is a huge difference in the privacy laws between the US and the EU. Shortly, in the EU you own your data, not the company hosting it.
yanw 15y ago
Hogwash! it is not legally permitted to target advertising using real identities, ads are targeted at demographics, and a name has no value to ad targeting anyway, interests are what used for targeting ads not names. There are many legitimate reasons to insist on real names within a social application, adding trustworthiness to sharing and trusting that you are communicating with the right person being among them. Also it's in beta testing and a pseudonym option will be introduced: https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts/Fddn6rV8mBX https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts/Fddn6rV8... Edit: clarifying that ads aren't allowed to be targeted using real identity.
- earl 15y ago
  It's certainly legally permissible to target ads at individuals -- see, eg, retargeting.
  - yanw 15y ago
    Which has nothing to do with real names or identities.
- anonymous246 15y ago
  Hmm, so Gmail showing you ads based on the email you're currently reading is unlawful? I think you have a weird (i.e., excessively narrow) definition of "target advertising to inviduals".
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - m0shen 15y ago
    They are targeting you, yes. But "you" is loosely defined as someone who reads email newsletters about cat toys, not necessarily "John Smith, cat toy enthusiast".
- beagle3 15y ago
  > it is not legally permitted to target advertising using real identities, [citation required]. As stated, this can't be right because my physical mailbox is chock full of real identity advertising - mostly related to credit cards but not only.
Matt_Cutts 15y ago
For a counter-point, this is what Robert Scoble wrote about his conversation with Vic Gundotra, Google's head of social: https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts/Fddn6rV8mBX https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts/Fddn6rV8... "He [Vic] says that he is trying to make sure a positive tone gets set here. Like when a restaurant doesn't allow people who aren't wearing shirts to enter. He says it isn't about real names. He says he isn't using his legal name here. He says, instead, it is about having common names and removing people who spell their names in weird ways, like using upside-down characters, or who are using obviously fake names, like "god" or worse. .... He also says they are working on ways to handle pseudonyms, but that will be a while before the team can turn on those features (everyone is working hard on a raft of different things and can't just react overnight to community needs)." Just wondering: can non-Google+ users follow the link above and read the post? I ask because Dave Winer said "I can't point to those articles because only people with Google-Plus accounts can read them, apparently." But I could pull up that Google+ post just fine, even with a non-logged-in Firefox or incognito Chrome window?
- nextparadigms 15y ago
  I'm fine with Google allowing "fake" names that look like real names, but not allowing names like "haxxor" or whatever.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
  - aristus 15y ago
    It's a rabbit hole. You'd think that banning the name anti is a good heuristic given handles like anti Christ. But anti is a perfectly valid name in parts of eastern Europe.
- polymer 15y ago
  I can read the post fine while logged in to my Google Apps (Google+ ineligible) account.
  - 15y ago
joshu 15y ago
Can we change the title? This is opinion presented as fact.
kenjackson 15y ago
It's becoming more and more clear that we are Google's product and not their customer. Google is bending over backwards to ensure we are a saleable commodity. I feel like at this point the "don't be evil" motto is not useful. The real question is "who wins when the interests of us, web searcher/service users, comes into conflict with their customers, advertisers?"
MatthewPhillips 15y ago
I think a social community should either be completely anonymous or completely named. Both Google+ and 4chan are great in their own ways. It's when there's a mixture of anonymity and not (twitter) where things can get frustrating.
glimcat 15y ago
That would be a great argument, if not for the fact that Google doesn't need to get that information from Plus. They most likely already have it.
gojomo 15y ago
Let me suggest the true issue isn't real vs. pseudonymous or common vs. contrived, but whether names are cheap and disposable. When identities are cheap and disposable, lots of mischief becomes more prevalent, like spam and harassment. When Google says they want 'common names', what they mean is they want names that already have a history of investment. That is, nothing created solely for the purpose of participation on GooPlu. This benefits Google a lot: it makes you less likely to 'burn' your GooPlu account with one-time mischief. It makes it easier for other acquaintances to build out their 'circles' by finding you. It even lets Google loosely correlate data from other sources (like their web crawls) with your GooPlu presence (for customization and ad targeting). Temporary, single-purpose identities are like masks. Society only welcomes masks in certain places and times. Even just a few masks in a forum that otherwise doesn't have them can change (or ruin) the character completely.
- felipemnoa 15y ago
  People that want to be anonymous will be anonymous. Using a real sounding name does not mean that it is the real name of the user.
buster 15y ago
I'd argue that using the real name helps the community in the end, because people behave "better" when taken away this anonymity. I have the feeling that up until now the conversations i had on google+ and the content i have seen has a far better quality then facebook or twitter. If this is worth the trade-off is up to everyone himself...
- icebraining 15y ago
  'Better', for varying definitions of the term. When identified, people behave as to protect themselves from social criticism. That may involve not post profanities in others' posts, but it may also involve not posting stuff that goes against the status quo.
  - buster 15y ago
    good point. i'm still not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing. My personal experience was: i entered google+ with my nick name and switched to my real name on my own, before those deletions took place... don't ask me why, it was just a feeling? As i especially enjoy the locality based stream, i enjoy not having to read too much crap :P Also, posting against the status quo is kind of natural in the internet, the difference is HOW and not WHAT is said.. On the other hand: Around 15-20% of my facebook friends use fake names out of privacy concerns and in general don't post crap. They still have their own, good reasons to not use their real name..
Hyena 15y ago
I doubt the marketing rationale. Most G+ accounts will be connected to older Gmail accounts, which are themselves likely to be the point-of-contact for most online transactions (and, if not, it's going to be same_name@yahoo.com, etc.). So it seems like Google already has the best identifier it could possibly get, the Gmail name, which can be cross-referenced even to otherwise anonymized data.
arihant 15y ago
Without real names, G+ will become Yahoo Pulse. Won't help anyone.
jrockway 15y ago
I think there are two reasons for making people use their real names, and it's not this. One is preventing non-person entities from using the service. Nobody wants a "friend" that's "Mashable News" or "Coca Cola". When these accounts start following you, it's worse than spam. If you want to advertise, buy an ad so I can block it. Secondly is the "anonymous people are jackasses" problem that's pervasive everywhere on the Internet. If people have to use their real names, they will behave on G+ as they would in person, which makes for a nicer experience. Anyway, you can legally change your name to whatever you want (I have a friend whose US passport says "Ingy döt Net"), so if you really consider yourself to be your nickname, get a government ID with that nickname on it. Problem solved. (This problem is also solved with Photoshop, FWIW.)
Info_Addict 15y ago
The only reason is for their power.People have some tolerance for corporate greed, but little to none for blatant corporate power grabs. They are literally killing it right before our eyes for lack of understanding. People won't use the system if they insist they get to know everything about you solely for their benefit. No matter how they spin it, it's just not gonna fly. Watch.
alexknight 15y ago
The reason why Google et al want your real name is very simple — to help you connect with friends easier. This isn't a difficult concept.

106 points by davewiner 15y ago

Kind of obvious, I just hope this kind of idea is picked up by the media. It's also why Google+ has some very tricky rules in regards to what becomes public on your profile, because publicly indexed information can be used and monetized more than the private information. That's why Google has made all the "revolutionary" platforms that it has been, and why Schmidt says so many scary things that should make us feel sick. Facebook's doing the same thing though, Google and them are both selling our identities, interests, social connects and other data to the highest bidder. But the handsets are cheap.

jvc26 15y ago

Doesn't look like the URL is functioning ...

nodata 15y ago

What a terrible article, it completely misses the point that for many people there is no such thing as having a Single Real Name.

burgerbrain 15y ago
Uhhh, did you read this article?
- nodata 15y ago
  Yes. It says "Simply put, a real name is worth more than a fake one." and we've already decided that a single real name doesn't exist for many people.
  - burgerbrain 15y ago
    You are missing the point entirely. This isn't a justification at all, it is an explanation. The article asserts that they can monetize single real names. Some people don't have those, but if Google thinks that they can't monetize that, why should they care? That is what the article is saying. It didn't miss a thing, it just didn't spell it out in simple english for you. And for the record, I do not agree with the article that this is the cause of Google's actions.
    - nodata 15y ago
      Look again at the other post from yesterday - the post that talks about how Google realises that there may be a case for not having a single name to rule them all, and that they were looking at way of making the alternative model work, i.e. make money for them.
      - burgerbrain 15y ago
        The article is suggesting that they at least initially did not see a way to monetize it. The topic article is not faulty in the way you suggest.

Vivtek 15y ago

Oy. Maybe if you have a relatively Googleable name like "Dave Winer", you could expect your theory to hold. But GOOGLE SHOULD KNOW BETTER. Try correlating my name (Michael Roberts) with anything just by name. It can't be done. There are an estimated 5589 Michael Robertses in the US (howmanyofme.com) and several of us in any given town. And my legal first name is actually James, so you can't correlate that with airline reservations anyway (thanks so very much, TSA). No, Google really didn't think this through here. And the "hoo-ha" (I'm not sure that means what you think it means) is about more than that. It's about a ToS that says "use the name your friends know you by" - often a pseudonym. Google will still delete your account with no recourse. (This even omits the real-world examples of people who don't fit Google's Anglo naming assumptions - the real world really does consist of about 20% impossible hacks, and you'd think Google, of all companies, would get that, but they seem not to.) Of course, Google's famous omission of any discernible customer service or appeals process only plays into this even more. No, it's a trainwreck. Google is responding well, and it's true it's still actually a beta - but pseudonymity is important, and the ability to correlate with banking records is broken anyway. So why stick with it?

deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
nobody_nowhere 15y ago
Lastname + zip is more than accurate enough to drive a lot of value for advertisers. It doesn't take a lot of precision to improve advertising efficiency. Link a creditcard to your google account and you're marketer's wet dream.
davewiner 15y ago
There are lots of other signals to triangulate by. Name is just one and the primary one. BTW, there are lots of people with my name, exact same spelling, in the US.
- Vivtek 15y ago
  That's nice. The factor is about 5000. Census records are used for howmanyofme.com (1990 and 2000) - there were 423,777 Robertses versus 2,406 Winers, and there were over 4,000,000 Michaels versus 82,000 Daves. I'm sure there are "lots" of people with your name in the US, but you aren't named Michael Roberts. Trust me. I am unGoogleable.

dlss 15y ago

> There's a very simple business reason why Google cares if they have your real name. It means it's possible to cross-relate your account with your buying behavior with their partners. The idea that google somehow wants track your behavior through your name is laughable. Do a facebook search for your name. Do you see all those results? Those are all false positives that google would have to build algorithms to try and weed out. ... or (assuming they actually wanted to track users in this way), they could just use the unique-by-definition email address you registered with, or the unique-by-definition credit card number you used in google checkout, or get that information from AdWords partners when they track conversions ... Since there are a thousand better (and less noticeable/public) ways to track users, we can safely ignore google wanting to "cross-relate your account with your buying behavior" as a possible motivation.

hn_decay 15y ago

Google knows who you are. Google knows where you've been on the web, and what you're doing. They long have. Google told me on my own + page several of the pseudonyms I've used across the web. The "Google wants to sell you" bit is not insightful. It's not a unique perspective. It's the same superficial analysis we see with every single thing Google does. Google wants an online community of real people, with what that entails. There is a long and documented trail of discussions on this topic regarding the downsides of anonymity. Yet there are also upsides, and if someone wants an anonymous discussion forum that supports that, there are plenty of options for that. But it is wholly inconsistent with the goals of Google+. Alas. Whatever Google does, just say it's because they want to sell you out. It's a clean, pat answer.

orangecat 15y ago
Google told me on my own + page several of the pseudonyms I've used across the web. Where exactly? I don't see anything like that on mine, and I'm curious whether Google knows who orangecat is. (Of course they may anyway even if they don't tell me).
jerf 15y ago
"It's the same superficial analysis we see with every single thing Google does." Superficial isn't a synonym of "wrong". Sometimes the superficial explanation is the correct one. Sometimes people expend a lot of cognitive effort looking for the complex, nuanced answer when the superficial one was correct all along. And sometimes not, of course. But I would argue that the idea that Google isn't giving one thought to how much money Google+ is going to make them is the bizarre position, absurd on its face. I'd also observe that any given action does not need to have one motive. Google can want a "real community" (also because a "real community" is more likely to be active, cause people to spend more time on Google+, and thus see more ads and generate more ad revenue), and also want to have better information with which to target you. There's no contradiction, and there's no way in which one is the "real" motivation and the other is false, they're all just mixed together. There's a whole lot of people here trying to draw lines about what's the real motivation and what isn't when there's no room to draw the lines in the first place.

jonknee 15y ago

Dave's been for a long time the tech version of an old man screaming at kids to get off his lawn. Matching your "Real Name" to advertising partners isn't at all why Google wants your "Real Name". They want it because it makes for a better social network. Most Gmail users provide a "Real Name" so Google already had hundreds of millions and so far as I know, hasn't decided to hook up with my grocery to somehow advertise better to me. They do use interest data, but it's one-click to opt-out of (http://www.google.com/privacy/ads/ http://www.google.com/privacy/ads/) and knowing someone's name adds little to being able to target ads.

RexRollman 15y ago
I suspect you are correct. I think Google wants G+ to be a useful way for people to find people they know, as that is the sole reason many people are on Facebook.
- rjd 15y ago
  I think it has more to do with Facebook and Microsoft taking away quite significant parts of the online ad revenue. Facebook is economically destroying Google in terms of display ads. Companies don't have loyalties to either company, they just go where the best value is. Currently thats Facebook. Google developed an attention economy, and Facebook has improved it.
raganwald 15y ago
Your comment reads better without the Ad Hominem. You have an opinion, it differs from his, that’s fine, and that’s all you need to say.
- jonknee 15y ago
  I don't think it's a stretch to characterize Dave Winer as a curmudgeon. He has made valuable contributions and I respect him, but he's still a curmudgeon.
  - raganwald 15y ago

wisty 15y ago

I doubt it. Google wants your real name so it's easier for your semi-friends to find you, and drive "engagement". I'm pretty sure my classmate from high school won't find me I sign up under the name "wisty". Which would be a mixed blessing, but very bad for business. OK, there are a few internet celebrities who are best know by "handles", but they aren't the bread and butter of social networks.

brudgers 15y ago
The fact that Google wants your semi-friends to find you is not a counter argument to the point that your real name is more valuable. Indeed, it points to a positive feedback loop which further increases the value of requiring real names, i.e. Google gets a map of your social graph which only contains real names.
maratd 15y ago
This has never been a problem for Facebook. People find other people through common friends, not by searching for names.
- jcampbell1 15y ago
  Correct me if I am wrong, but Facebook has the same policy and deletes suspiciously named accounts as well.
  - wccrawford 15y ago
    They technically have the same policy, but they don't seem to be proactive like Google is. Also, Facebook doesn't use your name to find your friends, they use your friends list to suggest their friends might be yours as well. Reason and method are both different.
    - notahacker 15y ago
      In the beginning Facebook was far more restrictive in requiring a university email as well as a real name to sign up. If it had instead launched based on an open invitation system and not policed pseudonymous accounts then marketers and trolls would have ensured it remained an insignificant niche site. If anything, real names were far more critical to Facebook's success than they might be to Google+

Dwatson783 15y ago

Yeah, this article is off. The idea that Google + would then take your name and sell it to it's partners while linking to its DFA data is an incredible breach of PII and they would be hit hard by the government immediately. As someone who works with these data feeds and digital marketing, I know it's not what they're aiming for and that it would be in violation. As others have pointed out the effort is in better matching and spreading of social circles. In doing so, Google + becomes a more widely used tool and, the relationships that a user has with others increases. Couple that with the idea of circles and future search, discussion and buying habits of the user, Google can then understand the influences different parts of the network have on the individual and tailor the advertising a user sees to the messages coming from the influential networks.

sethg 15y ago
They don’t have to sell the information to their partners. They could, for example, buy information associating last names and ZIP codes with estimated income levels, and then tell advertisers, “if you pay us $X we will put your ad on those Google+ pages where, according to our statistical estimate, at least 75% of the readers make over $100K.” The advertisers wouldn’t actually know the names of the people that Google forwards the ad to; they would just get the clicks.
- Dwatson783 15y ago
  There are a number of ways for Google to do that based on network, searches and other information that give them a high statistical probability of being right without having to go through the trouble of actually matching names with lists. That's a capability that goes right into retargeting/remarketing lists and certain ad servers.

Astrohacker 15y ago

A screen name is no less "real" than a legal name.

lutorm 15y ago
To the extent that you can change it at will without effort, yes it is.
- Astrohacker 15y ago
  What does that matter? If people know you by your screen name, that's a real name. Legal names are just nick names that are recorded by the government.
  - lutorm 15y ago
    It matters because if people can change names at will, they are effectively anonymous. And anonymity can bring out the worst in people.

maurycy 15y ago

I think that's illegal in many European countries to match the ads so closely, so it is unlikely that Google's had this in mind[1]. In my opinion, the actual reason is slightly gentler. There is a lot of research that says that people behave more responsibly under their real names. (I'm short on time right now, but please let me know if you're unable to find the papers within five minutes.) [1]. There is a huge difference in the privacy laws between the US and the EU. Shortly, in the EU you own your data, not the company hosting it.

yanw 15y ago

Hogwash! it is not legally permitted to target advertising using real identities, ads are targeted at demographics, and a name has no value to ad targeting anyway, interests are what used for targeting ads not names. There are many legitimate reasons to insist on real names within a social application, adding trustworthiness to sharing and trusting that you are communicating with the right person being among them. Also it's in beta testing and a pseudonym option will be introduced: https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts/Fddn6rV8mBX https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts/Fddn6rV8... Edit: clarifying that ads aren't allowed to be targeted using real identity.

earl 15y ago
It's certainly legally permissible to target ads at individuals -- see, eg, retargeting.
- yanw 15y ago
  Which has nothing to do with real names or identities.
anonymous246 15y ago
Hmm, so Gmail showing you ads based on the email you're currently reading is unlawful? I think you have a weird (i.e., excessively narrow) definition of "target advertising to inviduals".
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- m0shen 15y ago
  They are targeting you, yes. But "you" is loosely defined as someone who reads email newsletters about cat toys, not necessarily "John Smith, cat toy enthusiast".
beagle3 15y ago
> it is not legally permitted to target advertising using real identities, [citation required]. As stated, this can't be right because my physical mailbox is chock full of real identity advertising - mostly related to credit cards but not only.

Matt_Cutts 15y ago

For a counter-point, this is what Robert Scoble wrote about his conversation with Vic Gundotra, Google's head of social: https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts/Fddn6rV8mBX https://plus.google.com/111091089527727420853/posts/Fddn6rV8... "He [Vic] says that he is trying to make sure a positive tone gets set here. Like when a restaurant doesn't allow people who aren't wearing shirts to enter. He says it isn't about real names. He says he isn't using his legal name here. He says, instead, it is about having common names and removing people who spell their names in weird ways, like using upside-down characters, or who are using obviously fake names, like "god" or worse. .... He also says they are working on ways to handle pseudonyms, but that will be a while before the team can turn on those features (everyone is working hard on a raft of different things and can't just react overnight to community needs)." Just wondering: can non-Google+ users follow the link above and read the post? I ask because Dave Winer said "I can't point to those articles because only people with Google-Plus accounts can read them, apparently." But I could pull up that Google+ post just fine, even with a non-logged-in Firefox or incognito Chrome window?

nextparadigms 15y ago
I'm fine with Google allowing "fake" names that look like real names, but not allowing names like "haxxor" or whatever.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
- aristus 15y ago
  It's a rabbit hole. You'd think that banning the name anti is a good heuristic given handles like anti Christ. But anti is a perfectly valid name in parts of eastern Europe.
polymer 15y ago
I can read the post fine while logged in to my Google Apps (Google+ ineligible) account.
- 15y ago

joshu 15y ago

Can we change the title? This is opinion presented as fact.

kenjackson 15y ago

It's becoming more and more clear that we are Google's product and not their customer. Google is bending over backwards to ensure we are a saleable commodity. I feel like at this point the "don't be evil" motto is not useful. The real question is "who wins when the interests of us, web searcher/service users, comes into conflict with their customers, advertisers?"

MatthewPhillips 15y ago

I think a social community should either be completely anonymous or completely named. Both Google+ and 4chan are great in their own ways. It's when there's a mixture of anonymity and not (twitter) where things can get frustrating.

glimcat 15y ago

That would be a great argument, if not for the fact that Google doesn't need to get that information from Plus. They most likely already have it.

gojomo 15y ago

Let me suggest the true issue isn't real vs. pseudonymous or common vs. contrived, but whether names are cheap and disposable. When identities are cheap and disposable, lots of mischief becomes more prevalent, like spam and harassment. When Google says they want 'common names', what they mean is they want names that already have a history of investment. That is, nothing created solely for the purpose of participation on GooPlu. This benefits Google a lot: it makes you less likely to 'burn' your GooPlu account with one-time mischief. It makes it easier for other acquaintances to build out their 'circles' by finding you. It even lets Google loosely correlate data from other sources (like their web crawls) with your GooPlu presence (for customization and ad targeting). Temporary, single-purpose identities are like masks. Society only welcomes masks in certain places and times. Even just a few masks in a forum that otherwise doesn't have them can change (or ruin) the character completely.

felipemnoa 15y ago
People that want to be anonymous will be anonymous. Using a real sounding name does not mean that it is the real name of the user.

buster 15y ago

I'd argue that using the real name helps the community in the end, because people behave "better" when taken away this anonymity. I have the feeling that up until now the conversations i had on google+ and the content i have seen has a far better quality then facebook or twitter. If this is worth the trade-off is up to everyone himself...

icebraining 15y ago
'Better', for varying definitions of the term. When identified, people behave as to protect themselves from social criticism. That may involve not post profanities in others' posts, but it may also involve not posting stuff that goes against the status quo.
- buster 15y ago
  good point. i'm still not sure if this is a good thing or bad thing. My personal experience was: i entered google+ with my nick name and switched to my real name on my own, before those deletions took place... don't ask me why, it was just a feeling? As i especially enjoy the locality based stream, i enjoy not having to read too much crap :P Also, posting against the status quo is kind of natural in the internet, the difference is HOW and not WHAT is said.. On the other hand: Around 15-20% of my facebook friends use fake names out of privacy concerns and in general don't post crap. They still have their own, good reasons to not use their real name..

Hyena 15y ago

I doubt the marketing rationale. Most G+ accounts will be connected to older Gmail accounts, which are themselves likely to be the point-of-contact for most online transactions (and, if not, it's going to be same_name@yahoo.com, etc.). So it seems like Google already has the best identifier it could possibly get, the Gmail name, which can be cross-referenced even to otherwise anonymized data.

arihant 15y ago

Without real names, G+ will become Yahoo Pulse. Won't help anyone.

jrockway 15y ago

I think there are two reasons for making people use their real names, and it's not this. One is preventing non-person entities from using the service. Nobody wants a "friend" that's "Mashable News" or "Coca Cola". When these accounts start following you, it's worse than spam. If you want to advertise, buy an ad so I can block it. Secondly is the "anonymous people are jackasses" problem that's pervasive everywhere on the Internet. If people have to use their real names, they will behave on G+ as they would in person, which makes for a nicer experience. Anyway, you can legally change your name to whatever you want (I have a friend whose US passport says "Ingy döt Net"), so if you really consider yourself to be your nickname, get a government ID with that nickname on it. Problem solved. (This problem is also solved with Photoshop, FWIW.)

Info_Addict 15y ago

The only reason is for their power.People have some tolerance for corporate greed, but little to none for blatant corporate power grabs. They are literally killing it right before our eyes for lack of understanding. People won't use the system if they insist they get to know everything about you solely for their benefit. No matter how they spin it, it's just not gonna fly. Watch.

alexknight 15y ago

The reason why Google et al want your real name is very simple — to help you connect with friends easier. This isn't a difficult concept.