And also to change its mind at any time.
Whatever the reason Google gives for its policies regarding names on its profiles, new social network services (and whatever other services it chooses to bring under that banner over time), whether it is making people feel ‘safer’, eliminating spammers and scammers, or for mining marketing data; the practical result of all of how it works out is that Google wants to pick which name you get to publically use when you use those services, and to renege on that decision and force you to select another, should it change its mind.
Google might allow you to use your birth- or wallet-name. However Google has found hundreds of users using these names to not be ‘acceptable’, even when presented with appropriate government ID.
Google might allow you to use a pseudonym. It has allowed hundreds of users to do that.
Google might keep you picking alternatives until it decides that it is finally satisfied – or it might just greet you with a stony silence and cut you off from all Google services (maybe this isn’t supposed to happen, as some Google staffers have said, but it happens to some people anyway).
Google gets to decide what it considers your ‘real name’ to be, until or unless it decides you have to change it again.
You know what that is? That’s ridiculous; it’s capricious and unpredictable and every bit the behaviour you’d expect of a bully. It devalues Google’s social network and makes Diaspora and even Facebook look more attractive.
Zuckerberg must be laughing his arse off right now. At least Facebook’s terrible identity policies are pretty consistent.
Yup, all the earmarks of an internal power struggle between the geeks and the lawyers .. leaving the grunts that actually have to push the buttons flat out confused. Time to sit back and wait for the dust to settle IMO.
I’m very glad I deleted my G+ account. Policies like this only make people drop the service in favor of more favorable options. The risk of being locked out of my Gmail and all other services simply because they do not approve of a name is probably the worst thing they can do to their users. Why would anyone take the risk. Hell, if William Shatner was blocked from G+, I doubt anyone is safe.
The policy is heavily flawed and in need of change but I doubt anyone is going to do anything to fix the problem. First, they said everyone was welcome, then they said we had to use real names, and now they’ll decide how to identify you. We’re getting to the point where they will accept no names and just give us a bar-code or QR code to identify us. As for me, I’m sticking with Facebook till I get deleted there, and looking forward to Diaspora and anything else that comes up where misinformation, ‘growing pains’, tyranny, and witch hunts are not a part of the equation.
If I can find the time (sigh), I intend to move my calendar to something open source on a server I control. Likewise with my RSS aggregator. Right now, both of those are at Google. I’m kind of facepalming against myself for thinking I could trust them. After all, Google’s been a big corp for some time now. Indeed, in general, one should hesitate to trust any corp with private data you care about if you don’t have some sort of signed contract with them. (And, even then, it’s a bit illusory, because you will never be able to afford lawyers to pursue or defend a challenge from a big corp.) Yeah, I did my taxes with H&R Block, but there was a signed business relationship there. With Google calendar and reader, I just signed up for the free service…. As a company, I trust sonic.net (where I do my own web hosting) more than just about any other company on the net. So, it makes way more sense for me to find open source solutions and install them myself. (I realize that in being able and willing to do that, I’m in a minority.)
I’m not fully sure what to do about search, however….
I agree with Darrius. The lower level employees actually disabling the accounts are just trying to keep their heads down while their superiors duke it out. The kinks will probably be worked out in six months. In the meantime, though, Google is alienating a variety of groups.
And when the “kinks” get “worked out” they smile in your general direction and all of a sudden magically they’re the good guys just because it’s convenient? Well, that’s … totally pathetic. Wake up, stop feeding the spy-monster.
How doth the little crocodile
Improve his shining tail,
And pour the waters of the Nile
On every golden scale!
How cheerfully he seems to grin,
How neatly spreads his claws,
And welcomes little fishes in
With gently smiling jaws!
Wow. Pathetic, huh? Random attacks and insults are pretty pathetic, too. Name one large company with any kind of history that hasn’t screwed up at least this badly.
So why even use google, or facebook? I am google and facebook free. All accounts closed and all sites blocked in my router. I never see a google ad or facebook like button, and I’m loving it. I find bing more than adequate for my search needs. Actually, bing image search is far superior to google.
To communicate with friends, I use–gasp–email. It’s much more controllable.
I also use twitter. Without a google account, it lets me know when friends post a video on youtube. It’s also nice to post a quick photo with twitpic. When I post videos, I use other sites.
Google, facebook and every other “free service” are only in this for the money. They’re not our friends. The cost of losing my identity and freedom far outweighs the free services they annoyingly provide. Stop feeding these people and they’ll go away, or at least change they way they treat people.
[...] Google insists on the right to choose your name And also to change its mind at any time. Source: dwellonit.taterunino.net [...]
@Rob: I’m in the same situation as you, and have been experimenting with a lot of server software lately. I finally made a writeup of my experiences here: http://tgib.co.uk/2011/08/08/moving-out-of-google/
I think the takeaway message is that once again, WE are not the target customer. Casual users and non-technical sorts are the targets just like AOL, MySpace, FB, etc. Folks who happily trade privacy for convenience. TANSTAAFL.
Remember, if you’re not paying, you’re the product, not the customer. (And even if you are paying, chances are you’re still the product.)
To me, watching this third round of “give us your papers please,” this is a commercial work-around to something that was rejected on legal and Constitutional grounds the last time it was floated by government (RealID, rejected by all 50 states).
Its tentacles began with Facebook, and now with Google wading into the mess. Cleverly camouflaged as “oooo it’s a commercial service; you can always use another one!”, these are catspaws – searching little probes as to what The People will accept (Delphi study) and how many of their rights they are willing to give away to commercial interests for the convenience of being product.
The slogan I am adopting is “My Name – My Choice”.
[...] then whizzed it right down their legs. I haven’t deleted my Google+ account yet, but I won’t be posting anything there any [...]
I think Google should stick to being a search engine. They’ve pretty much messed up most other projects they’ve tackled.
It wouldn’t let me use my long time username.