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Eric Schmidt: If you can’t use your real name, don’t use Google+

47 points by pier0 15y ago

davedx 15y ago
What a wanker.
- mindcrime 15y ago
  Agreed. I've lost a lot of respect for Eric Schmidt since reading this. That said, all this proves is this: No matter what you think of Google and G+, vis-a-vis Facebook - or what you think of any other centralized social-network that's controlled by some central authority - the bottom line is that they all suffer from the same problem: autocratic, dictatorial control by a cabal of leaders who aren't accountable to the users. This whole debate should serve to remind all of us of the importance of research, development, and standards work around decentralized, federated, distributed social-networks where the user maintains control of their information. Whether it's Appleseed, Diaspora, OneSocialWeb or something that hasn't even come along yet, we need the ability to walk away from the Facebooks and G+s off the world, while not giving up on this form of communication.
- jrockway 15y ago
  This is why geeks have such a hard time dealing with the real world. Schmidt tells it like it is, and then he gets made fun of for not lying to his customers and shareholders. The reality is that Google+ can't provide strong anonymity because of all the laws it is subject to. Rather than entice someone into a false sense of security, they are flat out saying, "don't use our service if you require anonymity". It's not a pleasant message, but it's the truth, and that has value. Even if you're using a pseudonym for something the government doesn't care about (like _why was), it can still be upsetting when someone finds out who you really are. _why dropped off the face of the Internet when some kids decided to make it their life's work to figure out his "real name". Google wants to avoid being a tool for this sort of disruption to life and communities.
joshfraser 15y ago
I know there are exceptions, but most of the time I find myself wanting to post something anonymously it's because I'm saying or doing something I shouldn't. I appreciate Google's stand. All you need to do is look at 4chan to see what happens when anonymity reigns.
- davedx 15y ago
  Anonymous != pseudonymous. An account with a pseudonym is still accountable within the limits chosen by its owner. 4chan is completely different.
  - patrickaljord 15y ago
    Not when you can create as many pseudonyms as you want.
  - joshfraser 15y ago
    I agree. The problem is the line between them is so thin that from a rules/enforcement perspective they may as well be the same thing. How are they to tell the difference between a long-used pseudonym and a throw-away account?
- llambda 15y ago
  Straw man. Regardless: 4chan is not a model for Internet privacy.
  - Karunamon 15y ago
    John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory would seem to disagree with you. I'm okay with this stance. If you don't want to use real names, find another service.
    - mechanical_fish 15y ago
      You do realize that (a) The John Gabriel Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory is a joke, and (b) its inventor, John Gabriel, is a fictional character with a fake name?
llambda 15y ago
Eric Schmidt has a way with words. And that way has made Google consistently more and more off-putting from my perspective. The message seems clear: we don't think you should have privacy. Disagree? No problem. Go somewhere else. But that's a problem if there is nowhere else to go... True, I don't have to use Google. But Google might offer the best search solution or the best social network. I guess I'm just out of luck in that case. ;\
- haberman 15y ago
  > Eric Schmidt has a way with words. The words in the article were not Eric's, they were the questioner paraphrasing Eric's response.
- lallysingh 15y ago
  That wasn't the message I read from that. It was that they can't provide you with real privacy (against, say, governments), so they're not going to pretend like they do. If you want real privacy, this isn't the social network for you (and personally, I don't think there is one, but there's likely a market for it -- a tor-esque anonymizing social network would be pretty awesome). On top of that, that it's useful to know that everyone on G+ has passed some minimum bar that they're who they say they are. A low minimum, but a minimum. For the first part, there are some distinctions ignored, specifically pseudonyms. I suspect the answer is "we don't really care about pseudonyms." For the second, I can see it making sense the same way a financial exchange does. You know there are crooks and ways to cheat, but you also know that even the low degree of securities law enforcement is substantial enough to make your transactions pretty safe.
  - icebraining 15y ago
    >On top of that, that it's useful to know that everyone on G+ has passed some minimum bar that they're who they say they are. A low minimum, but a minimum. Yes, because that's clearly working well: https://plus.google.com/111162891247384008048/posts https://plus.google.com/111162891247384008048/posts https://plus.google.com/118274397320135769169/posts https://plus.google.com/118274397320135769169/posts https://plus.google.com/104634693509905640224/posts https://plus.google.com/104634693509905640224/posts https://plus.google.com/106516586759796563790/posts https://plus.google.com/106516586759796563790/posts
olalonde 15y ago
I fail to see why people make such a big fuss about Google's real name policy. If using your real name online puts your life at stake, use a damn fake name. I'm pretty sure Google won't ask for a scan of your ID card. Edit: Apparently Google can ask for your ID card (under exceptional circumstances)
- mechanical_fish 15y ago
  I'm pretty sure Google won't ask for a scan of your ID card. I'm pretty sure you're wrong, based on the work of Gary Walker: http://gewalker.blogspot.com/2011/08/firsthand-examination-of-google-profile.html http://gewalker.blogspot.com/2011/08/firsthand-examination-o... as reported by Charlie Stross: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/08/why-im-not-on-google-plus.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/08/why-im-n... "Send a poison pen email and you can get an account suspended until the owner verifies their identity by sending a scan of some ID."
  - olalonde 15y ago
    > Now that I had a completely innocuous, completely non-infringing account created, it was necessary to have that account reported. On August 4, 2011, we did just that. Simple steps to get a Google+ account, using a fake name: 1) Choose a name that doesn't have multiple Wikipedia entries. [1] 2) Do not report your own account as fake. Following those 2 simple rules, I was able to maintain multiple Facebook profiles for years. I doubt Google+ is any harder to game than Facebook. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Walker_(musician) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Walker_(musician), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Walker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Walker
    - mechanical_fish 15y ago
      I was able to maintain multiple Facebook profiles for years. That's hardly good enough. The Library of Alexandria was able to not burn down for years. Tomorrow Facebook may catch on to you, and then most of your Facebook profiles will be gone. Hope there's nothing in there you wanted to keep. Google is very clearly reserving the right to demand ID from us at any time in the future, and to delete our profiles if that ID doesn't satisfy them. Just because they are very undemanding, easy to satisfy, and easy to spoof today doesn't mean they won't get stricter tomorrow. And then our fake names, and all their associated data, and all their friends and reputations, and perhaps even all the data from associated accounts... will be gone. I fail to see how it's a feature that Google will give me plenty of time to accumulate precious things in my account before they get around to summarily deleting it.
SoftwareMaven 15y ago
the internet would be better if we knew you were a real person rather than a dog or a fake person. Some people are just evil and we should be able to ID them and rank them downward. This is a ridiculous argument. How often have you wondered, "Is this person I'm talking to really a dog?" Of course it's a real person, even if he goes by a stupid name like me. If Google is really trying to build an identity service rather than a social network, they need to come up with better arguments than this as to why that's a good idea.
- a3_nm 15y ago
  He should have replaced "dog" by "bot". Think about spam. CAPTCHAs are a poor substitute to an identity provider saying "this person already passed a Turing test". (However, it probably wouldn't be a good idea to adopt the trivial trust network with Google as the root node.)
  - SoftwareMaven 15y ago
    I was actualy wondering if Eliza* could get a G+ account. Honestly, I await the day bots can fool me. * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA
- w01fe 15y ago
  It's probably a reference to this famous comic: http://bit.ly/jb485V http://bit.ly/jb485V (Wikipedia, shortened because HN breaks the real URL by stripping out the apostrophe).
  - SoftwareMaven 15y ago
    Oh, yeah, I bet you are right. Thanks for the reminder. I had forgotten about that one.
- pistoriusp 15y ago
  I got a laugh out of that. I honestly don't think it was meant to be taken as a solid example, but rather an exaggeration.
patrickaljord 15y ago
I'm personally not a fan of anonymity on the web, most people are using it to insult others, being racists, bigoted and cowardly telling you things they wouldn't tell you to your face. If you live under a repressive government or need to whistle-blow, then sure, post your critics on an anonymous blog or to wikileaks, but apart from these rare cases, people should take responsibility for what they say and stop the annoying coward attacks. This is how it works in real life, when you have a comment or critic to do, you show your face and who you are before talking.
- celoyd 15y ago
  But we’re not talking about anonymity on the web, we’re talking about choice of names in a certain social network. I’m less likely to use G+ when I can’t use it to talk to people who aren’t using the form of their name that’s on their birth certificate. That’s quite different from anonymous griefers.
  - patrickaljord 15y ago
    > I’m less likely to use G+ when I can’t use it to talk to people who aren’t using the form of their name that’s on their birth certificate. Google+ doesn't force you to use the name that is on your birth certificate. They say you can use what most people call you so you aren't force to use your full second names for example. For example, if your name on your bc is Patrick John David Smith, G+ says it's ok to just use Patrick Smith if that is what most people call you.
    - celoyd 15y ago
      That’s true; I was exaggerating. I’m on G+ using a highly conventional nickname for my given name, on the order of Meg for Megan. The problem here is that many people have legitimate reasons to, for example, go by more than one name. Always having to use your most popular name is simply not good enough in many cases. I think most people are fine with Google trying to discourage lightweight throwaways on their service. What upsets people is what seems like an inflexibility that isn’t in Google’s own interests. Advertising to me under an “alternate” name is not significantly less efective than under my most popular name. If I’m willing to use a name to socially network, clearly I have some significant commitment to it; functionally, it is a real name. I don’t want to rehash all the arguments here, though. I just wanted to point out that requiring “real” names is not necessary or sufficient to prevent G+ from being 4chan, and shouldn’t be conflated with that.
jkuria 15y ago
This is the same guy who said that if you are doing something and you don't want Google to know about it, then you should probably not be doing it in the first place! He clearly does not get privacy!
- slig 15y ago
  No, he said that if you're looking to do something that you shouldn't, i.e something illegal, you shouldn't type that on Google, as they can be sued and forced to reveal what you searched.
  - prodigal_erik 15y ago
    "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." Not merely talking about it, but even doing it at all. That is quite literally what he said, and it's perilously close to asserting that those who've done nothing wrong have nothing to hide.
timsally 15y ago
Schmidt gets lambasted by the media every time he says something pragmatic about Google's services. I respect him for sticking to his guns. Here is a quote from Schmidt about Google Search that he got crucified for two years ago: Judgement matters... If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place... If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines - including Google - do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities. What he said two years ago about Google Search, and what he is trying to say now about Google+, is that these services are not for those with high security and privacy needs. And he's right; they aren't. As a US company, Google must conform to US law. This means Google must store certain information and under various circumstances provide the police and the government with said information. You really think Google+ allowing you to use a pseudonym would then make it ok for use by those with strong anonymity requirements? Absolutely not. EDIT: Please see jrockway's comment for a correction. Google is not legally required in the US to store information; still, they are in the EU. In any case, they are legally required to provide information they do have in many situations. Google chooses to retain some information in order to produce a more competitive product. This is how Google chooses to do business and it would be silly for those with strong anonymity requirements to use Google's services.
- jrockway 15y ago
  What information does the US government require Google to store? Google stores information because they think it's a useful service. That is, of course, subject to search by the government. But it is possible to make a search engine that didn't store anything; there is no law that requires maintaining HTTP access logs or anything like that.
  - onedognight 15y ago
    See https://duckduckgo.com/ https://duckduckgo.com/ .
  - timsally 15y ago
haberman 15y ago
I can see both sides of the "real name" argument, but one thing I don't understand is why Google is getting so much flak about this when Facebook has basically the same policy AFAICT. Are Google's rules stricter somehow?
- elehack 15y ago
  There are two aspects I see. One, Google may be enforcing more aggressively and less consistently. Two, the differing initial demographics. Facebook initially launched to college students and they established its initial environment. G+ started with the technorati, many of whom care deeply about this. Some of whom have handles going back longer than Google has existed.
- jsz0 15y ago
  Probably in large part because Google wants to be the alternative to FaceBook. They put the burden on themselves.
- vaksel 15y ago
  Facebook is just facebook Google+ is that and all other services
  - yanw 15y ago
    No it isn't: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20096313-264/what-happens-when-google-cuts-you-off/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20096313-264/what-happens-...
    - anon1385 15y ago
      That article debunks the claims you were making on this site last week about other services not being affected at all. Google: If your profile is under review, you will not be able to make full use of Google services that require an active profile such as Google+, Buzz, and some social features of Reader and Picasa Web Albums. For example, on Buzz, you can't create content, on Reader you can't share items with other users or follow other users, and on Picasa Web Albums you can't comment on photos. Compared with: "That is just a vicious rumor. They explicitly said the no other service of theirs will be affected." http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2907098 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2907098 "Other services aren't affected. Period." http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2907104 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2907104 Having core features of other services disabled is clearly an affect on those services. So, my question to you is: when did they "explicitly" say no other services were affected? And if they never did, why did you claim they did?
michaelpinto 15y ago
Google needs to stop allowing Eric Schmidt to speak for the company in any public capacity: It's just bad for the company and the shareholders because he's always off message and the worst guy to deliver any news. Yesterday I was reading how he was dissing the English education system and today it's this. I really wish that Larry Page would learn a lesson from Steve Jobs and step front and center in terms of Google getting the word out there: There's just too much at stake right now.
nhangen 15y ago
It's their product, why not let them decide what they do and do not allow?
- icebraining 15y ago
  I don't see anyone claiming for a law forcing G+ to accept pseudonymous. They have all the right to decide. And we have all the right to criticize them for that decision.
pnathan 15y ago
What, exactly, is the moral issue associated with letting the vast majority of nicks though? I can understand banning obscenities for usernames; I can understand banning fraudsters. But if I show up as LispNerd3K on G+ and only G+... who gives a rip? I mean, seriously. I was going to put some serious effort into G+, kinda use it as a mini-blogging platform, but I don't really care for the anti-hacker mindset that appears to be driving policy there.
- libber 15y ago
  Because google cannot make as much money off of an account named LispNerd3k vs your real name. From an advertising pov G+ wants to have as much information about you as possible to best target ads. This is basically a good thing as you see more of what you want and they get more clickthrough and can sell ads for more. When you type something into google search, google can make an educated guess about who you are based on your query, geo information and past searches. A primary goal of G+ is to associate the G+ information you are voluntarily filling out (real name, address, hobbies, etc) with the rest of googles ad network making it leaps better. That is why google thinks social networking is important, and why g+ doesn't need to "win" vs facebook for it to have a net positive effect on google. Even mild G+ adoption makes googles whole network of ads much more intelligent. I am not a business strategy person but this explanation makes sense to me so take it as a guess/opinion.
  - pluies 15y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but this has nothing to do with the real name vs. pseudonyms issue, right? If Google knows you as LispNerd3k, living in Philadelphia, about 30yo, geeky, white, male, past searches "xorg issue fedora 15" and "sicp", that's more than enough to give you targeted ads. As long as your pseudonym is consistent across websites (or Google services at least), there's no need for your real name.
- jsnell 15y ago
  Why does it need to be a moral issue? It should be easy to believe that people will behave differently in an environment with "real" looking names than in one with arbitrary gibberish pseudonyms. They then simply need to believe that on aggregate a social network with the former environment will be more successful than one with the latter. As for who cares, at least I do. I can't think of anyone whom I care about enough to follow on G+, but only know by a username or nick of some kind. In all but a handful of cases the real name is the primary identifier I have for those persons, the nick is just some added metadata. I find e.g. Twitter's handling of names to be rather repulsive, and it's probably one minor reason for why I repeatedly bounced off that platform. Admittedly I'm nowhere near as passionate about this as people ranting about how evil the Google+ name policy is, and how as a result they're going to delete their Gmail account, switch to Bing, and block Googlebot. So maybe it would have been more pragmatic to give into those people and turn Google+ into a free for all wasteland. Depends totally on what the ratio of people who strongly hate the policy is compared to the people who mildly like it. (How is this supposed to be an anti-hacker mindset anyway?)
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
Tharkun 15y ago
I call bullshit. The only reason why Google has an interest in verifying your identity is advertising money. They don't care about these allegedly "evil" people out there, nor do they really care about talking dogs. "Don't use Google+" is the only sensible thing I see here.
- patrickaljord 15y ago
  Don't use Facebook either then.
chc 15y ago
You know, I don't necessarily agree 100% with Schmidt's conclusions, but I wouldn't mind so much if he were advocating something he sincerely believed. But the fact that Lawrence Page and Vivek Gundotra are allowed to keep their pseudonymous "Larry" and "Vic" accounts makes it clear that Schmidt is lying through his teeth about real names being essential to identity. (I agree that these nicknames are better choices for the account than their real names — but that fact runs contrary to Schmidt's position, so either he's unaware of his CEO's real name or he's being disingenuous.)
toddh 15y ago
Imagine if newspapers in the time of the American revolution rejected all articles and letters without real names? There would be no revolution as it was largely argued and coordinated through the press. Even the Federalist Papers was written pseudonymously. What Google is saying is nothing of import should happen on G+.
- hermannj314 15y ago
  I don't see how your conclusion follows: lots of important things happen without anonymity. Most civils rights leaders demonstrated openly and without the veil of anonymity. I'm not saying anonymity is never important, I'm just saying it isn't necessary as a condition of importance. And a site requiring real names for account can still be used to communicate ideas anonymously. Similar to how money laundering works in US banks (which must be tied to a real name! OMG! How will anyone ever be able to use cash!). So on G+ you can have thought laundering! Anyway, I just don't get why everyone is so anti-Google. Providing a service that requires someone to use their real name doesn't hurt anonymity anymore than putting a hamburger on the menu hurts vegetarians.
yanw 15y ago
To add some context: he was asked by a war reporter (Andy Carvin) about people living under totalitarian regimes and their correlation with the G+ real name policy. So basically the answer is that if you are endangered by reveling your real name, you shouldn't use it, at least not at this stage which is prudent advice.
buff-a 15y ago
Given the number of different ways that this policy can be used for "evil", Google's motto is beginning to sound religious and righteous rather than moral. That is, the decision is not justifiable. Its just dogma. Rather like a Christian Crusader saying "Don't be Evil" just before murdering a town of Muslims because, after all, if you aren't Christian, then by definition, you are evil, and eradicating evil is what we do. This is how Schmidt's "sticking to his guns" comes across to me. When "Good" means "What we think Good is", then "Don't be Evil" is the epitome of evil.
Kilimanjaro 15y ago
Time is ripe for an anonymous social platform worth billions of dollars. One with email, chat, voice, video, pics, blogs, circles, groups, followers and games. Preferable from the open source community. Two names come to mind as possible candidates for developing such worldwide platforms: Canonical and Mozilla. I'd slit my wrists to have a name@firefox.com email.
robyates 15y ago
This is not really related. But has anyone seen the video of Eric Schmidt practicing public speaking: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA1I6MUOKkU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA1I6MUOKkU Found it just yesterday and it's amazing to see how he used to be.

47 points by pier0 15y ago

davedx 15y ago

What a wanker.

mindcrime 15y ago
Agreed. I've lost a lot of respect for Eric Schmidt since reading this. That said, all this proves is this: No matter what you think of Google and G+, vis-a-vis Facebook - or what you think of any other centralized social-network that's controlled by some central authority - the bottom line is that they all suffer from the same problem: autocratic, dictatorial control by a cabal of leaders who aren't accountable to the users. This whole debate should serve to remind all of us of the importance of research, development, and standards work around decentralized, federated, distributed social-networks where the user maintains control of their information. Whether it's Appleseed, Diaspora, OneSocialWeb or something that hasn't even come along yet, we need the ability to walk away from the Facebooks and G+s off the world, while not giving up on this form of communication.
jrockway 15y ago
This is why geeks have such a hard time dealing with the real world. Schmidt tells it like it is, and then he gets made fun of for not lying to his customers and shareholders. The reality is that Google+ can't provide strong anonymity because of all the laws it is subject to. Rather than entice someone into a false sense of security, they are flat out saying, "don't use our service if you require anonymity". It's not a pleasant message, but it's the truth, and that has value. Even if you're using a pseudonym for something the government doesn't care about (like _why was), it can still be upsetting when someone finds out who you really are. _why dropped off the face of the Internet when some kids decided to make it their life's work to figure out his "real name". Google wants to avoid being a tool for this sort of disruption to life and communities.

joshfraser 15y ago

I know there are exceptions, but most of the time I find myself wanting to post something anonymously it's because I'm saying or doing something I shouldn't. I appreciate Google's stand. All you need to do is look at 4chan to see what happens when anonymity reigns.

davedx 15y ago
Anonymous != pseudonymous. An account with a pseudonym is still accountable within the limits chosen by its owner. 4chan is completely different.
- patrickaljord 15y ago
  Not when you can create as many pseudonyms as you want.
- joshfraser 15y ago
  I agree. The problem is the line between them is so thin that from a rules/enforcement perspective they may as well be the same thing. How are they to tell the difference between a long-used pseudonym and a throw-away account?
llambda 15y ago
Straw man. Regardless: 4chan is not a model for Internet privacy.
- Karunamon 15y ago
  John Gabriel's Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory would seem to disagree with you. I'm okay with this stance. If you don't want to use real names, find another service.
  - mechanical_fish 15y ago
    You do realize that (a) The John Gabriel Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory is a joke, and (b) its inventor, John Gabriel, is a fictional character with a fake name?

llambda 15y ago

Eric Schmidt has a way with words. And that way has made Google consistently more and more off-putting from my perspective. The message seems clear: we don't think you should have privacy. Disagree? No problem. Go somewhere else. But that's a problem if there is nowhere else to go... True, I don't have to use Google. But Google might offer the best search solution or the best social network. I guess I'm just out of luck in that case. ;\

haberman 15y ago
> Eric Schmidt has a way with words. The words in the article were not Eric's, they were the questioner paraphrasing Eric's response.
lallysingh 15y ago
That wasn't the message I read from that. It was that they can't provide you with real privacy (against, say, governments), so they're not going to pretend like they do. If you want real privacy, this isn't the social network for you (and personally, I don't think there is one, but there's likely a market for it -- a tor-esque anonymizing social network would be pretty awesome). On top of that, that it's useful to know that everyone on G+ has passed some minimum bar that they're who they say they are. A low minimum, but a minimum. For the first part, there are some distinctions ignored, specifically pseudonyms. I suspect the answer is "we don't really care about pseudonyms." For the second, I can see it making sense the same way a financial exchange does. You know there are crooks and ways to cheat, but you also know that even the low degree of securities law enforcement is substantial enough to make your transactions pretty safe.
- icebraining 15y ago
  >On top of that, that it's useful to know that everyone on G+ has passed some minimum bar that they're who they say they are. A low minimum, but a minimum. Yes, because that's clearly working well: https://plus.google.com/111162891247384008048/posts https://plus.google.com/111162891247384008048/posts https://plus.google.com/118274397320135769169/posts https://plus.google.com/118274397320135769169/posts https://plus.google.com/104634693509905640224/posts https://plus.google.com/104634693509905640224/posts https://plus.google.com/106516586759796563790/posts https://plus.google.com/106516586759796563790/posts

olalonde 15y ago

I fail to see why people make such a big fuss about Google's real name policy. If using your real name online puts your life at stake, use a damn fake name. I'm pretty sure Google won't ask for a scan of your ID card. Edit: Apparently Google can ask for your ID card (under exceptional circumstances)

mechanical_fish 15y ago
I'm pretty sure Google won't ask for a scan of your ID card. I'm pretty sure you're wrong, based on the work of Gary Walker: http://gewalker.blogspot.com/2011/08/firsthand-examination-of-google-profile.html http://gewalker.blogspot.com/2011/08/firsthand-examination-o... as reported by Charlie Stross: http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/08/why-im-not-on-google-plus.html http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2011/08/why-im-n... "Send a poison pen email and you can get an account suspended until the owner verifies their identity by sending a scan of some ID."
- olalonde 15y ago
  > Now that I had a completely innocuous, completely non-infringing account created, it was necessary to have that account reported. On August 4, 2011, we did just that. Simple steps to get a Google+ account, using a fake name: 1) Choose a name that doesn't have multiple Wikipedia entries. [1] 2) Do not report your own account as fake. Following those 2 simple rules, I was able to maintain multiple Facebook profiles for years. I doubt Google+ is any harder to game than Facebook. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Walker_(musician) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Walker_(musician), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Walker http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Walker
  - mechanical_fish 15y ago
    I was able to maintain multiple Facebook profiles for years. That's hardly good enough. The Library of Alexandria was able to not burn down for years. Tomorrow Facebook may catch on to you, and then most of your Facebook profiles will be gone. Hope there's nothing in there you wanted to keep. Google is very clearly reserving the right to demand ID from us at any time in the future, and to delete our profiles if that ID doesn't satisfy them. Just because they are very undemanding, easy to satisfy, and easy to spoof today doesn't mean they won't get stricter tomorrow. And then our fake names, and all their associated data, and all their friends and reputations, and perhaps even all the data from associated accounts... will be gone. I fail to see how it's a feature that Google will give me plenty of time to accumulate precious things in my account before they get around to summarily deleting it.

SoftwareMaven 15y ago

the internet would be better if we knew you were a real person rather than a dog or a fake person. Some people are just evil and we should be able to ID them and rank them downward. This is a ridiculous argument. How often have you wondered, "Is this person I'm talking to really a dog?" Of course it's a real person, even if he goes by a stupid name like me. If Google is really trying to build an identity service rather than a social network, they need to come up with better arguments than this as to why that's a good idea.

a3_nm 15y ago
He should have replaced "dog" by "bot". Think about spam. CAPTCHAs are a poor substitute to an identity provider saying "this person already passed a Turing test". (However, it probably wouldn't be a good idea to adopt the trivial trust network with Google as the root node.)
- SoftwareMaven 15y ago
  I was actualy wondering if Eliza* could get a G+ account. Honestly, I await the day bots can fool me. * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ELIZA
w01fe 15y ago
It's probably a reference to this famous comic: http://bit.ly/jb485V http://bit.ly/jb485V (Wikipedia, shortened because HN breaks the real URL by stripping out the apostrophe).
- SoftwareMaven 15y ago
  Oh, yeah, I bet you are right. Thanks for the reminder. I had forgotten about that one.
pistoriusp 15y ago
I got a laugh out of that. I honestly don't think it was meant to be taken as a solid example, but rather an exaggeration.

patrickaljord 15y ago

I'm personally not a fan of anonymity on the web, most people are using it to insult others, being racists, bigoted and cowardly telling you things they wouldn't tell you to your face. If you live under a repressive government or need to whistle-blow, then sure, post your critics on an anonymous blog or to wikileaks, but apart from these rare cases, people should take responsibility for what they say and stop the annoying coward attacks. This is how it works in real life, when you have a comment or critic to do, you show your face and who you are before talking.

celoyd 15y ago
But we’re not talking about anonymity on the web, we’re talking about choice of names in a certain social network. I’m less likely to use G+ when I can’t use it to talk to people who aren’t using the form of their name that’s on their birth certificate. That’s quite different from anonymous griefers.
- patrickaljord 15y ago
  > I’m less likely to use G+ when I can’t use it to talk to people who aren’t using the form of their name that’s on their birth certificate. Google+ doesn't force you to use the name that is on your birth certificate. They say you can use what most people call you so you aren't force to use your full second names for example. For example, if your name on your bc is Patrick John David Smith, G+ says it's ok to just use Patrick Smith if that is what most people call you.
  - celoyd 15y ago
    That’s true; I was exaggerating. I’m on G+ using a highly conventional nickname for my given name, on the order of Meg for Megan. The problem here is that many people have legitimate reasons to, for example, go by more than one name. Always having to use your most popular name is simply not good enough in many cases. I think most people are fine with Google trying to discourage lightweight throwaways on their service. What upsets people is what seems like an inflexibility that isn’t in Google’s own interests. Advertising to me under an “alternate” name is not significantly less efective than under my most popular name. If I’m willing to use a name to socially network, clearly I have some significant commitment to it; functionally, it is a real name. I don’t want to rehash all the arguments here, though. I just wanted to point out that requiring “real” names is not necessary or sufficient to prevent G+ from being 4chan, and shouldn’t be conflated with that.

jkuria 15y ago

This is the same guy who said that if you are doing something and you don't want Google to know about it, then you should probably not be doing it in the first place! He clearly does not get privacy!

slig 15y ago
No, he said that if you're looking to do something that you shouldn't, i.e something illegal, you shouldn't type that on Google, as they can be sued and forced to reveal what you searched.
- prodigal_erik 15y ago
  "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." Not merely talking about it, but even doing it at all. That is quite literally what he said, and it's perilously close to asserting that those who've done nothing wrong have nothing to hide.

timsally 15y ago

Schmidt gets lambasted by the media every time he says something pragmatic about Google's services. I respect him for sticking to his guns. Here is a quote from Schmidt about Google Search that he got crucified for two years ago: Judgement matters... If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place... If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines - including Google - do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities. What he said two years ago about Google Search, and what he is trying to say now about Google+, is that these services are not for those with high security and privacy needs. And he's right; they aren't. As a US company, Google must conform to US law. This means Google must store certain information and under various circumstances provide the police and the government with said information. You really think Google+ allowing you to use a pseudonym would then make it ok for use by those with strong anonymity requirements? Absolutely not. EDIT: Please see jrockway's comment for a correction. Google is not legally required in the US to store information; still, they are in the EU. In any case, they are legally required to provide information they do have in many situations. Google chooses to retain some information in order to produce a more competitive product. This is how Google chooses to do business and it would be silly for those with strong anonymity requirements to use Google's services.

jrockway 15y ago
What information does the US government require Google to store? Google stores information because they think it's a useful service. That is, of course, subject to search by the government. But it is possible to make a search engine that didn't store anything; there is no law that requires maintaining HTTP access logs or anything like that.
- onedognight 15y ago
  See https://duckduckgo.com/ https://duckduckgo.com/ .
- timsally 15y ago

haberman 15y ago

I can see both sides of the "real name" argument, but one thing I don't understand is why Google is getting so much flak about this when Facebook has basically the same policy AFAICT. Are Google's rules stricter somehow?

elehack 15y ago
There are two aspects I see. One, Google may be enforcing more aggressively and less consistently. Two, the differing initial demographics. Facebook initially launched to college students and they established its initial environment. G+ started with the technorati, many of whom care deeply about this. Some of whom have handles going back longer than Google has existed.
jsz0 15y ago
Probably in large part because Google wants to be the alternative to FaceBook. They put the burden on themselves.
vaksel 15y ago
Facebook is just facebook Google+ is that and all other services
- yanw 15y ago
  No it isn't: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20096313-264/what-happens-when-google-cuts-you-off/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-30685_3-20096313-264/what-happens-...
  - anon1385 15y ago
    That article debunks the claims you were making on this site last week about other services not being affected at all. Google: If your profile is under review, you will not be able to make full use of Google services that require an active profile such as Google+, Buzz, and some social features of Reader and Picasa Web Albums. For example, on Buzz, you can't create content, on Reader you can't share items with other users or follow other users, and on Picasa Web Albums you can't comment on photos. Compared with: "That is just a vicious rumor. They explicitly said the no other service of theirs will be affected." http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2907098 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2907098 "Other services aren't affected. Period." http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2907104 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2907104 Having core features of other services disabled is clearly an affect on those services. So, my question to you is: when did they "explicitly" say no other services were affected? And if they never did, why did you claim they did?

michaelpinto 15y ago

Google needs to stop allowing Eric Schmidt to speak for the company in any public capacity: It's just bad for the company and the shareholders because he's always off message and the worst guy to deliver any news. Yesterday I was reading how he was dissing the English education system and today it's this. I really wish that Larry Page would learn a lesson from Steve Jobs and step front and center in terms of Google getting the word out there: There's just too much at stake right now.

nhangen 15y ago

It's their product, why not let them decide what they do and do not allow?

icebraining 15y ago
I don't see anyone claiming for a law forcing G+ to accept pseudonymous. They have all the right to decide. And we have all the right to criticize them for that decision.

pnathan 15y ago

What, exactly, is the moral issue associated with letting the vast majority of nicks though? I can understand banning obscenities for usernames; I can understand banning fraudsters. But if I show up as LispNerd3K on G+ and only G+... who gives a rip? I mean, seriously. I was going to put some serious effort into G+, kinda use it as a mini-blogging platform, but I don't really care for the anti-hacker mindset that appears to be driving policy there.

libber 15y ago
Because google cannot make as much money off of an account named LispNerd3k vs your real name. From an advertising pov G+ wants to have as much information about you as possible to best target ads. This is basically a good thing as you see more of what you want and they get more clickthrough and can sell ads for more. When you type something into google search, google can make an educated guess about who you are based on your query, geo information and past searches. A primary goal of G+ is to associate the G+ information you are voluntarily filling out (real name, address, hobbies, etc) with the rest of googles ad network making it leaps better. That is why google thinks social networking is important, and why g+ doesn't need to "win" vs facebook for it to have a net positive effect on google. Even mild G+ adoption makes googles whole network of ads much more intelligent. I am not a business strategy person but this explanation makes sense to me so take it as a guess/opinion.
- pluies 15y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but this has nothing to do with the real name vs. pseudonyms issue, right? If Google knows you as LispNerd3k, living in Philadelphia, about 30yo, geeky, white, male, past searches "xorg issue fedora 15" and "sicp", that's more than enough to give you targeted ads. As long as your pseudonym is consistent across websites (or Google services at least), there's no need for your real name.
jsnell 15y ago
Why does it need to be a moral issue? It should be easy to believe that people will behave differently in an environment with "real" looking names than in one with arbitrary gibberish pseudonyms. They then simply need to believe that on aggregate a social network with the former environment will be more successful than one with the latter. As for who cares, at least I do. I can't think of anyone whom I care about enough to follow on G+, but only know by a username or nick of some kind. In all but a handful of cases the real name is the primary identifier I have for those persons, the nick is just some added metadata. I find e.g. Twitter's handling of names to be rather repulsive, and it's probably one minor reason for why I repeatedly bounced off that platform. Admittedly I'm nowhere near as passionate about this as people ranting about how evil the Google+ name policy is, and how as a result they're going to delete their Gmail account, switch to Bing, and block Googlebot. So maybe it would have been more pragmatic to give into those people and turn Google+ into a free for all wasteland. Depends totally on what the ratio of people who strongly hate the policy is compared to the people who mildly like it. (How is this supposed to be an anti-hacker mindset anyway?)

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

Tharkun 15y ago

I call bullshit. The only reason why Google has an interest in verifying your identity is advertising money. They don't care about these allegedly "evil" people out there, nor do they really care about talking dogs. "Don't use Google+" is the only sensible thing I see here.

patrickaljord 15y ago
Don't use Facebook either then.

chc 15y ago

You know, I don't necessarily agree 100% with Schmidt's conclusions, but I wouldn't mind so much if he were advocating something he sincerely believed. But the fact that Lawrence Page and Vivek Gundotra are allowed to keep their pseudonymous "Larry" and "Vic" accounts makes it clear that Schmidt is lying through his teeth about real names being essential to identity. (I agree that these nicknames are better choices for the account than their real names — but that fact runs contrary to Schmidt's position, so either he's unaware of his CEO's real name or he's being disingenuous.)

toddh 15y ago

Imagine if newspapers in the time of the American revolution rejected all articles and letters without real names? There would be no revolution as it was largely argued and coordinated through the press. Even the Federalist Papers was written pseudonymously. What Google is saying is nothing of import should happen on G+.

hermannj314 15y ago
I don't see how your conclusion follows: lots of important things happen without anonymity. Most civils rights leaders demonstrated openly and without the veil of anonymity. I'm not saying anonymity is never important, I'm just saying it isn't necessary as a condition of importance. And a site requiring real names for account can still be used to communicate ideas anonymously. Similar to how money laundering works in US banks (which must be tied to a real name! OMG! How will anyone ever be able to use cash!). So on G+ you can have thought laundering! Anyway, I just don't get why everyone is so anti-Google. Providing a service that requires someone to use their real name doesn't hurt anonymity anymore than putting a hamburger on the menu hurts vegetarians.

yanw 15y ago

To add some context: he was asked by a war reporter (Andy Carvin) about people living under totalitarian regimes and their correlation with the G+ real name policy. So basically the answer is that if you are endangered by reveling your real name, you shouldn't use it, at least not at this stage which is prudent advice.

buff-a 15y ago

Given the number of different ways that this policy can be used for "evil", Google's motto is beginning to sound religious and righteous rather than moral. That is, the decision is not justifiable. Its just dogma. Rather like a Christian Crusader saying "Don't be Evil" just before murdering a town of Muslims because, after all, if you aren't Christian, then by definition, you are evil, and eradicating evil is what we do. This is how Schmidt's "sticking to his guns" comes across to me. When "Good" means "What we think Good is", then "Don't be Evil" is the epitome of evil.

Kilimanjaro 15y ago

Time is ripe for an anonymous social platform worth billions of dollars. One with email, chat, voice, video, pics, blogs, circles, groups, followers and games. Preferable from the open source community. Two names come to mind as possible candidates for developing such worldwide platforms: Canonical and Mozilla. I'd slit my wrists to have a name@firefox.com email.

robyates 15y ago

This is not really related. But has anyone seen the video of Eric Schmidt practicing public speaking: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA1I6MUOKkU http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bA1I6MUOKkU Found it just yesterday and it's amazing to see how he used to be.