Mister Bradley Horowitz,
At one time or another, I’ve been involved in computer and Internet security. I’ve investigated breaches, secured systems, cleaned off rootkits. I’ve worked with the Federal police to locate and identify malefactors and bring them to justice – something that often comes with a price.
For some years, you’ve provided me with services that handle my email, and private conversations, and allow me to pursue activities online while feeling safe from the risks that I personally am keenly aware of. You’ve taken care of that data, and I’ve trusted you with it. I always felt safe doing so. Safe from discrimination, harassment, threats and intimidation – within acceptable limits. Safe from having my privacy breached or my identity misused.
Enter Google Plus and Google Profiles. A quick glance through their terms, and I felt comfortable with them, and once again, I felt safe with the new services. That lasted about a couple of days, until your people suspended one of my friends because they didn’t care for the name he was using.
Over the next few days, Google suspended dozens of my friends, co-workers, and colleagues. Some were using pseudonyms, other were not. Some Google insisted on government-issued ID for, and some they did not. Some were reinstated, and some were not. Some lost access to other services – which Google employees acknowledged as a known glitch – and some did not.
Many lost confidence and deleted themselves. Of course each person lost represents a greater loss in network effects.
And throughout, a number of prominent people used their well-known pseudonyms without challenge, simply because the names were recognisable to Google employees. That’s quite inconsistent.
As I understand it now, you’re asking me – and people like me – to give up either our privacy or all of our social contacts on Google Plus, our Google Profiles, our Plus Ones and any product that you might choose to hook up to those profiles in future.
That’s very much a “the devil or the deep-blue-sea” sort of choice you’ve presented us with.
And you’re doing it so that we can feel safer.
Well, sir, respectfully… I do not feel safe. I no longer do. You have extended certain measures of privacy to me, and the not inconsiderable feeling of safety that it brings, and told me that I must give it back.
And here’s the kicker. Even if I were to do so, there seems to be no guarantee whatsoever that your organisation might not throw me out anyway while exercising its capricious and lackadaisical enforcement, targeting people who are operating under nicknames and maiden names or various handles.
So, I can yield up my privacy unto you, and feel unsafe thereby.
I can leave, abrogating the benefits of some current and future Google products – and naturally having to treat any remaining Google products with suspicion in case they are folded in under the same terms.
I can remain as-is, under the name that I am best-known by.
And for each of these three options, I might be suspended anyway.
That does not exactly represent choice, sir. For me, each of the three options above represents a losing position.
Do I expect to change your mind? No, sir, I do not. It has been made abundantly clear that Google does not intend to alter its course on this matter.
I am considering my choice between these options, and I am wondering instead if you are interested in changing my mind.
Quite sincerely,
Tateru Nino (the same one that your company’s recruiters try to hire several times every year)
/me attaches my signature in whole-hearted agreement …
Me eiher
I feel somewhat similar. I keep a leisure and Small Business account, both separate. I don’t want Google+ connected to either one. I’m not an opponent of real-name only policies but I really don’t understand Goolge’s motives with Google+ as a standalone product; if I can’t trust that I definitely can’t trust what impact it’ll have in the future on my YouTube or Gmail account.
Hear, hear!
Just wrote many paragraphs in response but, along with the other 12 pages or so I’ve written in the last three weeks in the form of unshared essay or blog comments, I’ll stick them in an encrypted file and save them for my memoirs (har). I’m of the firm belief that every thought that crosses one’s mind should not foolishly be posted permanently to the Web. I’ll just summarize and let others to do their own mulling.
I think many people have experienced, or know someone who has, getting themselves into a roommate situation that went horribly wrong. Letting someone who appeared trustworthy and normal into their lives and their home, only to discover to their undying regret they had made a very grievous error in judgment.
Google is *not* a social platform. Never forget that their primary function is to collect and index and profit from every bit of information they can accumulate from every source they can control. It can be argued that what Google is currently doing is a good thing because it’s raising consciousness about online surveillance. Hopefully mindfulness and caution will become habit before people lull themselves back into a false sense of security and continue to trustingly feed their innermost thoughts and private info to the data collection monster.
There’s an old adage that if you are not happy then behave *as if* you are and it will be so. One may not believe that as an entity Google is inherently evil, but they are behaving *as if* they are …
And don’t forget, just because you’re not paranoid doesn’t mean that institutions or members of the lurking unhinged aren’t (or won’t be later) plotting against you. Be careful out there, the cost of cloud convenience and “socializing” may be greater than you are willing to pay.
The rich guy doesn’t care. He thinks he is a superior being.
See a Google employee? Tell them to GTFO back to their pearly aryan castle and stay there.
Dear Google:
My gmail account isn’t my legal name. Unless it’s a law enforcement officer with a warrant, you won’t disclose my personal name to third parties. What the hell is the effing big deal with doing the same with Google Plus?
Sincerely,
Jesus H Common Sense, Esq.
If you need a good search engine, use Google.
If you need a good social media tool, use Facebook.
http://sitearm.wordpress.com/2011/07/19/facebook-and-google-comparison/
I fully concur with Miss Tateru !
Consider me undersigned as well.
There is absolutely no way I would risk putting my name online as it would compromise my safety and privacy. Google is loosing a some respect with this policy. If they could see it through our eyes, I’m sure they would understand how we feel about this. I can understand their reasoning, but it in no way out weighs my reasons. People come first in my book.
[...] Read the rest of Ms. Nino’s letter here. [...]
“If they could see it through our eyes”
Sadly, they are a bunch of rich spoiled kids in the center of hippy dippy California who have no idea how the rest of us live.
@Tateru; I’ve been thinking a bit on what Google+ is really aiming at and I think it’s aiming at being a paid Google service for enterprises with, say, about 100 people or more. That is, it is aimed at organizations that are large enough to need a private “intranetworking” tool, but not large enough to afford an in-house or premium data center service.
What Google+ is NOT is a public service like Google Search or Google Mail.
I recently joined a project that used a Paid Google Mail Service for a custom mail url, and that was my first exposure to “the private side of Google.” Lord knows the company makes plenty of ad revenue from large-scale use of its public services, that are “cost-free but not ad-free”. And they make additional revenue from private versions of Search and Mail.
So I think the company got itself into trouble by implying that Google+ would be another cost-but-not-ad-free public service, especially because they used the big buzz method of going after independent early adopters to sign up for it, just like they did for Google Mail. THEN we found out about the forced-use-of-private-information to use the service and not be banned.
I would call what happened intentional “Bait and Switch” if I thought they did it on purpose. The alternative is that they didn’t think it through enough, ahead of time, about what they were doing, who they were aiming at, and how it would be received.
After all, enterprise users are NOT going to sign up for Google+ for organization use unless their organizations have adopted it. So why was it ever made public to independent users?
I disliked Google+ the first time I received an invite from a person who didn’t actually have my email. They looked up my identity who-knows-where, sent me an invite to a board I’ve never heard of, without actually having my data available to them. They went through some aspect of Google… an area that was supposed to be secure and sacrosanct… and hit me with what I consider to be yet another “hey join this!” spam notice.
I immediately went to Google+ and unsubscribed from all mailing to that board. In my opinion they breached my privacy, and my security, and I want nothing to do with their project.
I’d plus 1 this, only I’ve been suspended, with no form to request an appeal. Google, you’re starting to suck.
Sitearm, that sort of makes sense. It’s a scheme were real names would matter.
The results don’t look very clever.
[...] Similar Experiences: * GrrlScientist and an Open Letter * Skud on her ongoing suspension saga. * Tateru Nino'sOpen Letter to Bradley Horowitz. * Skud's survey of why choose the "real" names they [...]
Am i (relatively) safe if i don’t create a Google Profile (staying away from Buzz and Plus) ?
@Tigro;
BOTTOM LINE: I do not have the same level of trust in Google Services that I once had.
You asked: “Am I (relatively) safe if I don’t create a Google Profile (staying away from Buzz and Plus)?” The same question is very much on my mind.
I deleted anything and everything to do with Google Profile and Google+. But I still use, and heavily depend on, Google Mail and Google Search. Are these services going to suddenly require real-name-or-be-banned?
The Google Terms Of Service are vague. They state, in part: 5. Use of the Services by you
5.1 In order to access certain Services, you may be required to provide information about yourself (such as identification or contact details) as part of the registration process for the Service, or as part of your continued use of the Services. You agree that any registration information you give to Google will always be accurate, correct and up to date.
I interpret this to mean that at any time they are free to redefine “accurate, correct, and up to date” to include, for example, “If you are rambo929@gmail.com you must now tell us your real name or be banned.”
I think they would crash and burn in a heartbeat if they did this. But they are not exactly coming across as knowing what they are doing, right now. And they are in copyright battles with Microsoft, redesigning Chrome from scratch, and marketing the heck out of Android. So there may be a major Left Hand Not Knowing What The Right Hand Is Doing problem going on right now.
I spent years using gmail on a pilot basis before I moved to it for business and personal use. But, as Plan B, I have already thought how and where I would move my email to get completely off of Google.
I would never have thought to worry about Google Mail being safe, at this late date, until this Google+ thing came to a head.
BOTTOM LINE: I do not have the same level of trust in Google Services that I once had.
REFERENCE: Google Terms Of Service
http://www.google.com/accounts/TOS?hl=en