21 ms·

Facebook Users Must Be Allowed To Use Pseudonyms, Says German Privacy Regulator

138 points by iProject 14y ago

stared 14y ago
Honestly, I don't get it. While approach to usernames and privacy varies, participation in FB is voluntary. And real names have some advantages (e.g. much harder time for trolls); sure, they have disadvantages as well... ...but I don't like the idea of a country saying about features a certain product needs to have (or even - thinking that they can say, because AFAIK in the current state Germany can make usage of FB illegal for their citizens, as it is no located in Germany).
- anaheim 14y ago
  When looking at social networks, always remember to look for applications other than "sharing pictures of my lunch with friends". Participation in FB is voluntary, but also one of the few ways to quickly reach an audience of millions worldwide to promote your cause. Imagine people in Syria or Egypt wanting to communicate their plight anonymously with the world. If Facebook applies its ham-fisted "real name" policies, this can result in very real and deadly consequences for them.
- islon 14y ago
  Why do you need to protect yourself from trolls on facebook? Those are your friends. Unless you add every stranger that send you a friend request. I'm not in favor of Germany on this one but sometimes the law/government should interfere to ensure people freedom. Just because it's a private company doesn't mean they can do whatever they want with our data even if we were the ones providing the data.
  - stared 14y ago
    I use FB mainly for information distribution and conversation. It means that I interact with friends of friends, and with people who "are going" to my event (and I'm not knowing them in person). (And yes, I add Internet-only acquaintances, but not guys I don't know.) Some of my personal experience says that (usually, not always) people under names don't troll that much. Of course, the situation is different for small communities, or skill-driven communities, but (usually) not for open ones. (E.g. on HN anonymity works well.) I don't say that I agree with FB's rules (personally I prefer "real names encouraged, but not required" policy on such "for everyone" sites). I'm just saying that there are pros and cons, both for FB and for its users.
    - omd 14y ago
      > personally I prefer "real names encouraged, but not required" policy That's what the German government is saying. They're not outlawing the use of real names.
  - thirdtruck 14y ago
    Boyfriends/girlfriends turned stalker. Having others add you to groups without permissions. Hacked accounts.
- drx 14y ago
  I guess you could make a case for FB being a de facto monopoly on connecting with friends and therefore needing to behave in certain consumer-friendly ways. Alternatively, "you want to do business in our country, you must follow our rules". Not that I agree.
  - stared 14y ago
    Sure, monopolies needs to be controlled. (Especially then there is no longer free market.) However, for me there is a strong difference whether a monopoly chances rules (or as time goes by, the world changes - see move/music distributors) or people accepted it before it was a monopoly. E.g. imagine that Germany say that HN needs to have pictures or, at very least, thumbnails. ;)
    - pacala 14y ago
      > E.g. imagine that Germany say that HN needs to have pictures or, at very least, thumbnails. ;) This is a weak slippery slope argument. Germany is not making arbitrary requests on web sites. Rather it is protecting the right of its citizens to anonymity, according to pre-existing laws.
  - Roybatty 14y ago
    Alternatively, North Korea, Mozambique, Cubs, and France can also say that, but why does it matter?
- throwaway125 14y ago
  You can turn the same thing around, no one is forcing Facebook to do business in Germany. If they want to do business in Germany they have to follow German regulations.
  - icebraining 14y ago
    It's not the same thing at all, because the German regulations would be stopping two consenting parties from interacting with each other, while Facebook does not such thing (it just prevents some from interacting with Facebook itself). EDIT: People assuming that I'm against all kinds of such regulations: cut that out, I never claimed that.
    - eru 14y ago
      > [...] because the German regulations would be stopping two consenting parties from interacting with each other [...] That might be a moral problem for libertarians. But there are lots of (not only German) laws along these lines.
      - icebraining 14y ago
        I never said it can never be justified. I live in the EU and agree with most of our consumer protection laws. I'm just drawing an important distinction. Not participating in a transaction is a personal issue, which doesn't need justification. Not letting others participate in it should need to be very well justified, at least in a State that is supposed to be democratic and just. Personally, and in this particular case, I find the justification lacking.
        gurkendoktor 14y ago
        If it helps - many FB users are minors. The gov't is making sure that they can post "LOL PUKED FROM TEQUILA FOR THE FIRST TIME" under a pseudonym.
    - rickmb 14y ago
      The 800 pound gorilla Facebook and the average German teenage girl (to name just an example) aren't exactly equal consenting parties. The law is there to protect individual citizens against the ruthless exploitation by major corporations like Facebook. Especially when those corporations hold the key to either social isolation or abandoning your civil rights. The laws are there to prevent companies from abusing their power from effectively undermining individual people's rights and freedoms.
- wes-exp 14y ago
  ... participation in FB is voluntary. Facebook is used as the exclusive sign-on system for various services besides Facebook itself. For instance, Spotify uses it, and last I checked it is not possible to use Spotify at all without using Facebook. If Facebook continues to grow, the consequences of not using Facebook could be more severe than at present. It's a classic example of network effects. Once something becomes a necessity, such as telephone or internet, I think you have a strong case to say that even though using it is technically voluntary, the price of not using it is so high that most people have no choice. Is Facebook at that level of necessity today? Not for me, but maybe it is for some people.
  - AdamFernandez 14y ago
    Technically voluntary, is still very much voluntary. As is using Spotify, or any other service that requires a Facebook login. I disagree with the philosophy that true online identity is better for all, but also disagree that Facebook should be forced to do this. People have other choices, and had other choices while Facebook was growing. People chose the 'true' identity social network long before it was the dominant player in the space. People kept choosing it before the super network effects kicked in.
    - chimeracoder 14y ago
      And when your ISP starts requiring you to sign in with Facebook via a captive portal before you can browse the Internet at home, will you still continue to "choose" the "true identity social network"?
  - lostlogin 14y ago
    I have never used Facebook and signed up to Spotify yesterday with no problemss.
    - panacea 14y ago
      The ability to do that is very well hidden.
- michaelfeathers 14y ago
  That is the extreme disconnect between libertarian and other perspectives. In the libertarian perspective all that matters is that two parties agree. There is no consideration given to the relative power of the two parties or the effect of their agreement.
- axusgrad 14y ago
  Let's say that Facebook required you to have a well-lit photo of your face, taken within the last year. Would it be ok for Germany to restrict this requirement? How about if Facebook required users to submit a form detailing all sources and amounts of income for the previous year? Strictly confidential, of course. Germany would certainly have a double standard barring those practices, but they should.
  - rmc 14y ago
    It is quite common for countries to have an explicit double standard for themselves and private companies, especially with things like documentation (and doing trials and locking people up, and fining people). This is not new.
- greggman 14y ago
  Disqus says people with pseudonyms participate more http://disqus.com/research/pseudonyms/ http://disqus.com/research/pseudonyms/
- rmc 14y ago
  as it is no located in Germany Facebook have an office in Germany. Here's some job postings: https://www.facebook.com/careers/locations/hamburg https://www.facebook.com/careers/locations/hamburg and their Facebook page for the office https://www.facebook.com/FacebookHamburg https://www.facebook.com/FacebookHamburg
alxndr 14y ago
BBC story posted on HN earlier: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4937073 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4937073
kyllo 14y ago
Interesting--there are other countries where you are required by law to register with your real name (and national ID #) on every site. South Korea had such a law until it was struck down in August of this year. The perspective on whether anonymity online is a right differs very much by local culture and political climate.
- Strshps1MoreTim 14y ago
  Of course corrupted governments don't want criticism from anonymous, hard to find sources.
zxcdw 14y ago
I think it should be a rule in the internet that users should have a right to use whichever pseudonym they wish. Anonymity would be great too, but obviously it does not work in certain cases. I for one won't use Facebook or any other social media as long as I can't use a fake name. At times it feels a shame, really.
- recycleme 14y ago
  It may be against Facebook's TOS to use a fake name but you can definitely get away with it. However, if you are adding friends and family to your list of facebook friends then it might not be hard at all to figure your real name out.
  - thirdtruck 14y ago
    That reminds me of a site that, in protest to arguments made for criminal hacking charges in the "MySpace suicide" case, changed its TOS to ban people named "Steve" from visiting at all. I hope that we make more headway, in the legal and popular understanding, that website TOSs currently seem to amount to nothing more binding than "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service" signs.
  - aleyan 14y ago
    Family maybe, but figuring out the real name from friends can get difficult. I know a guy who has been using an alias on facebook for the past 8 years or so. It is funny to watch when his alias creeps in to real life. Normal scenario, Bob meets Alice, a friend of a friend, at a party. They friend each other on facebook, Bob uses the alias Claude. Sometime passes and they run into each other elsewhere. Since Alice met many people that day and now mostly only remembers Bob as Claude from facebook. Some confusion occurs when Bob's friends call him Bob while Alice is convinced his name is Claude.
    - eertami 14y ago
      This happens to me a lot. I don't think Facebook are even interested in enforcing real names though, my middle name is currently "Hashtag", it is obvious that it is not a real name yet it was accepted.
tomjen3 14y ago
What on earth makes the Germans think that they can decide what facebook must do?
- duiker101 14y ago
  The fact that a company isn't more powerful than a nation and that if you want to have German users you must follow Germany's laws?
  - jeltz 14y ago
    Especially if you also like Facebook has a German office.
- konstruktor 14y ago
  They are not deciding what Facebook must do in general, but what Facebook must do so that they can sell Germans to their advertisers. Clarification (edit): With this I mean that they don't have to make pseudonyms available to, say, the French.
- Roybatty 14y ago
  Germans have historically thought they can dictate their wishes on others.
- Roybatty 14y ago
  Don't worry though. The communists in the UN will soon decide that Facebook needs oversight.
- jacoblyles 14y ago
  Don't know why you're getting downvoted. I absolutely agree that it is not the place of regulators to decide which features a website must or must not have. Let the German people decide for themselves what kind of usernames they would prefer.
  - jacquesm 14y ago
    > Let the German people decide for themselves what kind of usernames they would prefer. They just did.
muhu 14y ago
All those big "social" networking platforms lately seem to be getting a little bit overconfident that they can just whatever they want with their users data. don't like the tendencies ... totalitarian on the network-side and mostly indifferent on the user-side.
Scramblejams 14y ago
IANAL. If Facebook didn't have a headquarters in Europe (Ireland, according to the article), would there be any chance of Germany enforcing this? I can think of a number of communities which have chosen to require the use of real names, and I wonder what kind of corporate structure they need to have in order to make that policy legally defensible against laws like these.
- eru 14y ago
  > IANAL. If Facebook didn't have a headquarters in Europe (Ireland, according to the article), would there be any chance of Germany enforcing this? Not sure. But if they are offering their service to Germans, and, perhaps more important, make money from German companies via sale of advertising, there's probably a lever for German law to act on.
- fh973 14y ago
  The regulator was actually saying that the goal of his move is to have it challenged in court. He wants to either establish to have a saying over Facebook, or, I guess, put some pressure on politics.
- rmc 14y ago
  Facebook have an office in Germany. Here's some job postings: https://www.facebook.com/careers/locations/hamburg https://www.facebook.com/careers/locations/hamburg and their Facebook page for the office https://www.facebook.com/FacebookHamburg https://www.facebook.com/FacebookHamburg Regardless Facebook Ireland Ltd., would fall under Irish, not German law.
slowpoke 14y ago
I always wonder during those discussions - what exactly is a "real" name supposed to be? I don't have "real" name. Rather, I have many chosen names, and a name my parents gave me. I consider all of these names real, as they refer to a facet of my personality, a part of me. I do have a legal name - my birth name. It's but one of many. Why is my legal name important? It isn't. I don't even consider it my primary name. The concept of one single "real" name is severely retarded and flies in the face of reality. We need to get rid of this concept, along with the illusion of a single identity. I simply am not the same person when I am with my parents, when I'm with my meatspace friends, or if I'm hanging out on IRC with people I know pretty well, but have never seen or met. I'm someone different here on HN than I am on 4chan, or any other message board. That's perfectly human, and no company or law will ever change that.
- debacle 14y ago
  > Why is my legal name important? It isn't. I don't even consider it my primary name. The concept of one single "real" name is severely retarded and flies in the face of reality. We need to get rid of this... No, sorry. No. Your legal name is important. If you ever get incarcerated, your legal name will be on the docket. If you have a license or passport, your legal name will be on it. Your taxes have your legal name, as well as any other government certificates you may ever have.
  - brown 14y ago
    If we're talking about legal purposes, then names are a pretty poor primary key. In such situations, SSN or other UUID would be superior. For any recreational/social purpose, what's the point of requiring legal name? How many "John Smith"s are there in the world?
    - skreech 14y ago
      The SSN is technically a NUID, not an UUID. So legal names are more important in international context (an Indian SSN doesn't mean anything in the US, for example). But yeah, assigning GUIDs to everyone born in the world, like as "a93sz0sz" would allow uniqueness for thousands of years.
talmir 14y ago
I already have a pseudonym on facebook :P I had no idea you couldnt do that.
zee007 14y ago
This is the worst thing they found in facebook's term of use? Really?
- gurkendoktor 14y ago
  No, I think this was much worse: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/22/technology/facebook-backs-down-on-face-recognition-in-europe.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/22/technology/facebook-backs-... Much of what Facebook does is actually against European law, now it's down to enforcement: http://europe-v-facebook.org/EN/en.html http://europe-v-facebook.org/EN/en.html
vonuebelgarten 14y ago
I don't use Facebook as people usually use but I have some accounts for API tinkering and some groups I follow. None of them use anything near my real name, residency, photos or other real personal data. It's a bit odd to explain to people from some groups I meet in person why I don't use my real name on FB, but they usually understand. There is no way for them to find this out, since my aliases sounds naturally and the fake data also seems real. This strategy also applies for any other social-web services.
jacoblyles 14y ago
Does this mean that all real name services are banned in Germany?

138 points by iProject 14y ago

Honestly, I don't get it. While approach to usernames and privacy varies, participation in FB is voluntary. And real names have some advantages (e.g. much harder time for trolls); sure, they have disadvantages as well... ...but I don't like the idea of a country saying about features a certain product needs to have (or even - thinking that they can say, because AFAIK in the current state Germany can make usage of FB illegal for their citizens, as it is no located in Germany).

anaheim 14y ago
When looking at social networks, always remember to look for applications other than "sharing pictures of my lunch with friends". Participation in FB is voluntary, but also one of the few ways to quickly reach an audience of millions worldwide to promote your cause. Imagine people in Syria or Egypt wanting to communicate their plight anonymously with the world. If Facebook applies its ham-fisted "real name" policies, this can result in very real and deadly consequences for them.
islon 14y ago
Why do you need to protect yourself from trolls on facebook? Those are your friends. Unless you add every stranger that send you a friend request. I'm not in favor of Germany on this one but sometimes the law/government should interfere to ensure people freedom. Just because it's a private company doesn't mean they can do whatever they want with our data even if we were the ones providing the data.
- stared 14y ago
  I use FB mainly for information distribution and conversation. It means that I interact with friends of friends, and with people who "are going" to my event (and I'm not knowing them in person). (And yes, I add Internet-only acquaintances, but not guys I don't know.) Some of my personal experience says that (usually, not always) people under names don't troll that much. Of course, the situation is different for small communities, or skill-driven communities, but (usually) not for open ones. (E.g. on HN anonymity works well.) I don't say that I agree with FB's rules (personally I prefer "real names encouraged, but not required" policy on such "for everyone" sites). I'm just saying that there are pros and cons, both for FB and for its users.
  - omd 14y ago
    > personally I prefer "real names encouraged, but not required" policy That's what the German government is saying. They're not outlawing the use of real names.
- thirdtruck 14y ago
  Boyfriends/girlfriends turned stalker. Having others add you to groups without permissions. Hacked accounts.
drx 14y ago
I guess you could make a case for FB being a de facto monopoly on connecting with friends and therefore needing to behave in certain consumer-friendly ways. Alternatively, "you want to do business in our country, you must follow our rules". Not that I agree.
- stared 14y ago
  Sure, monopolies needs to be controlled. (Especially then there is no longer free market.) However, for me there is a strong difference whether a monopoly chances rules (or as time goes by, the world changes - see move/music distributors) or people accepted it before it was a monopoly. E.g. imagine that Germany say that HN needs to have pictures or, at very least, thumbnails. ;)
  - pacala 14y ago
    > E.g. imagine that Germany say that HN needs to have pictures or, at very least, thumbnails. ;) This is a weak slippery slope argument. Germany is not making arbitrary requests on web sites. Rather it is protecting the right of its citizens to anonymity, according to pre-existing laws.
- Roybatty 14y ago
  Alternatively, North Korea, Mozambique, Cubs, and France can also say that, but why does it matter?
throwaway125 14y ago
You can turn the same thing around, no one is forcing Facebook to do business in Germany. If they want to do business in Germany they have to follow German regulations.
- icebraining 14y ago
  It's not the same thing at all, because the German regulations would be stopping two consenting parties from interacting with each other, while Facebook does not such thing (it just prevents some from interacting with Facebook itself). EDIT: People assuming that I'm against all kinds of such regulations: cut that out, I never claimed that.
  - eru 14y ago
    > [...] because the German regulations would be stopping two consenting parties from interacting with each other [...] That might be a moral problem for libertarians. But there are lots of (not only German) laws along these lines.
    - icebraining 14y ago
      I never said it can never be justified. I live in the EU and agree with most of our consumer protection laws. I'm just drawing an important distinction. Not participating in a transaction is a personal issue, which doesn't need justification. Not letting others participate in it should need to be very well justified, at least in a State that is supposed to be democratic and just. Personally, and in this particular case, I find the justification lacking.
      - gurkendoktor 14y ago
        If it helps - many FB users are minors. The gov't is making sure that they can post "LOL PUKED FROM TEQUILA FOR THE FIRST TIME" under a pseudonym.
  - rickmb 14y ago
    The 800 pound gorilla Facebook and the average German teenage girl (to name just an example) aren't exactly equal consenting parties. The law is there to protect individual citizens against the ruthless exploitation by major corporations like Facebook. Especially when those corporations hold the key to either social isolation or abandoning your civil rights. The laws are there to prevent companies from abusing their power from effectively undermining individual people's rights and freedoms.
wes-exp 14y ago
... participation in FB is voluntary. Facebook is used as the exclusive sign-on system for various services besides Facebook itself. For instance, Spotify uses it, and last I checked it is not possible to use Spotify at all without using Facebook. If Facebook continues to grow, the consequences of not using Facebook could be more severe than at present. It's a classic example of network effects. Once something becomes a necessity, such as telephone or internet, I think you have a strong case to say that even though using it is technically voluntary, the price of not using it is so high that most people have no choice. Is Facebook at that level of necessity today? Not for me, but maybe it is for some people.
- AdamFernandez 14y ago
  Technically voluntary, is still very much voluntary. As is using Spotify, or any other service that requires a Facebook login. I disagree with the philosophy that true online identity is better for all, but also disagree that Facebook should be forced to do this. People have other choices, and had other choices while Facebook was growing. People chose the 'true' identity social network long before it was the dominant player in the space. People kept choosing it before the super network effects kicked in.
  - chimeracoder 14y ago
    And when your ISP starts requiring you to sign in with Facebook via a captive portal before you can browse the Internet at home, will you still continue to "choose" the "true identity social network"?
- lostlogin 14y ago
  I have never used Facebook and signed up to Spotify yesterday with no problemss.
  - panacea 14y ago
    The ability to do that is very well hidden.
michaelfeathers 14y ago
That is the extreme disconnect between libertarian and other perspectives. In the libertarian perspective all that matters is that two parties agree. There is no consideration given to the relative power of the two parties or the effect of their agreement.
axusgrad 14y ago
Let's say that Facebook required you to have a well-lit photo of your face, taken within the last year. Would it be ok for Germany to restrict this requirement? How about if Facebook required users to submit a form detailing all sources and amounts of income for the previous year? Strictly confidential, of course. Germany would certainly have a double standard barring those practices, but they should.
- rmc 14y ago
  It is quite common for countries to have an explicit double standard for themselves and private companies, especially with things like documentation (and doing trials and locking people up, and fining people). This is not new.
greggman 14y ago
Disqus says people with pseudonyms participate more http://disqus.com/research/pseudonyms/ http://disqus.com/research/pseudonyms/
rmc 14y ago
as it is no located in Germany Facebook have an office in Germany. Here's some job postings: https://www.facebook.com/careers/locations/hamburg https://www.facebook.com/careers/locations/hamburg and their Facebook page for the office https://www.facebook.com/FacebookHamburg https://www.facebook.com/FacebookHamburg

alxndr 14y ago

BBC story posted on HN earlier: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4937073 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4937073

kyllo 14y ago

Interesting--there are other countries where you are required by law to register with your real name (and national ID #) on every site. South Korea had such a law until it was struck down in August of this year. The perspective on whether anonymity online is a right differs very much by local culture and political climate.

Strshps1MoreTim 14y ago
Of course corrupted governments don't want criticism from anonymous, hard to find sources.

zxcdw 14y ago

I think it should be a rule in the internet that users should have a right to use whichever pseudonym they wish. Anonymity would be great too, but obviously it does not work in certain cases. I for one won't use Facebook or any other social media as long as I can't use a fake name. At times it feels a shame, really.

recycleme 14y ago
It may be against Facebook's TOS to use a fake name but you can definitely get away with it. However, if you are adding friends and family to your list of facebook friends then it might not be hard at all to figure your real name out.
- thirdtruck 14y ago
  That reminds me of a site that, in protest to arguments made for criminal hacking charges in the "MySpace suicide" case, changed its TOS to ban people named "Steve" from visiting at all. I hope that we make more headway, in the legal and popular understanding, that website TOSs currently seem to amount to nothing more binding than "No Shirt, No Shoes, No Service" signs.
- aleyan 14y ago
  Family maybe, but figuring out the real name from friends can get difficult. I know a guy who has been using an alias on facebook for the past 8 years or so. It is funny to watch when his alias creeps in to real life. Normal scenario, Bob meets Alice, a friend of a friend, at a party. They friend each other on facebook, Bob uses the alias Claude. Sometime passes and they run into each other elsewhere. Since Alice met many people that day and now mostly only remembers Bob as Claude from facebook. Some confusion occurs when Bob's friends call him Bob while Alice is convinced his name is Claude.
  - eertami 14y ago
    This happens to me a lot. I don't think Facebook are even interested in enforcing real names though, my middle name is currently "Hashtag", it is obvious that it is not a real name yet it was accepted.

tomjen3 14y ago

What on earth makes the Germans think that they can decide what facebook must do?

duiker101 14y ago
The fact that a company isn't more powerful than a nation and that if you want to have German users you must follow Germany's laws?
- jeltz 14y ago
  Especially if you also like Facebook has a German office.
konstruktor 14y ago
They are not deciding what Facebook must do in general, but what Facebook must do so that they can sell Germans to their advertisers. Clarification (edit): With this I mean that they don't have to make pseudonyms available to, say, the French.
Roybatty 14y ago
Germans have historically thought they can dictate their wishes on others.
Roybatty 14y ago
Don't worry though. The communists in the UN will soon decide that Facebook needs oversight.
jacoblyles 14y ago
Don't know why you're getting downvoted. I absolutely agree that it is not the place of regulators to decide which features a website must or must not have. Let the German people decide for themselves what kind of usernames they would prefer.
- jacquesm 14y ago
  > Let the German people decide for themselves what kind of usernames they would prefer. They just did.

muhu 14y ago

All those big "social" networking platforms lately seem to be getting a little bit overconfident that they can just whatever they want with their users data. don't like the tendencies ... totalitarian on the network-side and mostly indifferent on the user-side.

Scramblejams 14y ago

IANAL. If Facebook didn't have a headquarters in Europe (Ireland, according to the article), would there be any chance of Germany enforcing this? I can think of a number of communities which have chosen to require the use of real names, and I wonder what kind of corporate structure they need to have in order to make that policy legally defensible against laws like these.

eru 14y ago
> IANAL. If Facebook didn't have a headquarters in Europe (Ireland, according to the article), would there be any chance of Germany enforcing this? Not sure. But if they are offering their service to Germans, and, perhaps more important, make money from German companies via sale of advertising, there's probably a lever for German law to act on.
fh973 14y ago
The regulator was actually saying that the goal of his move is to have it challenged in court. He wants to either establish to have a saying over Facebook, or, I guess, put some pressure on politics.
rmc 14y ago
Facebook have an office in Germany. Here's some job postings: https://www.facebook.com/careers/locations/hamburg https://www.facebook.com/careers/locations/hamburg and their Facebook page for the office https://www.facebook.com/FacebookHamburg https://www.facebook.com/FacebookHamburg Regardless Facebook Ireland Ltd., would fall under Irish, not German law.

slowpoke 14y ago

I always wonder during those discussions - what exactly is a "real" name supposed to be? I don't have "real" name. Rather, I have many chosen names, and a name my parents gave me. I consider all of these names real, as they refer to a facet of my personality, a part of me. I do have a legal name - my birth name. It's but one of many. Why is my legal name important? It isn't. I don't even consider it my primary name. The concept of one single "real" name is severely retarded and flies in the face of reality. We need to get rid of this concept, along with the illusion of a single identity. I simply am not the same person when I am with my parents, when I'm with my meatspace friends, or if I'm hanging out on IRC with people I know pretty well, but have never seen or met. I'm someone different here on HN than I am on 4chan, or any other message board. That's perfectly human, and no company or law will ever change that.

debacle 14y ago
> Why is my legal name important? It isn't. I don't even consider it my primary name. The concept of one single "real" name is severely retarded and flies in the face of reality. We need to get rid of this... No, sorry. No. Your legal name is important. If you ever get incarcerated, your legal name will be on the docket. If you have a license or passport, your legal name will be on it. Your taxes have your legal name, as well as any other government certificates you may ever have.
- brown 14y ago
  If we're talking about legal purposes, then names are a pretty poor primary key. In such situations, SSN or other UUID would be superior. For any recreational/social purpose, what's the point of requiring legal name? How many "John Smith"s are there in the world?
  - skreech 14y ago
    The SSN is technically a NUID, not an UUID. So legal names are more important in international context (an Indian SSN doesn't mean anything in the US, for example). But yeah, assigning GUIDs to everyone born in the world, like as "a93sz0sz" would allow uniqueness for thousands of years.

talmir 14y ago

I already have a pseudonym on facebook :P I had no idea you couldnt do that.

zee007 14y ago

This is the worst thing they found in facebook's term of use? Really?

gurkendoktor 14y ago
No, I think this was much worse: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/22/technology/facebook-backs-down-on-face-recognition-in-europe.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/22/technology/facebook-backs-... Much of what Facebook does is actually against European law, now it's down to enforcement: http://europe-v-facebook.org/EN/en.html http://europe-v-facebook.org/EN/en.html

vonuebelgarten 14y ago

I don't use Facebook as people usually use but I have some accounts for API tinkering and some groups I follow. None of them use anything near my real name, residency, photos or other real personal data. It's a bit odd to explain to people from some groups I meet in person why I don't use my real name on FB, but they usually understand. There is no way for them to find this out, since my aliases sounds naturally and the fake data also seems real. This strategy also applies for any other social-web services.

jacoblyles 14y ago

Does this mean that all real name services are banned in Germany?