Website Bans Woman With "Unacceptable" Name

Barbarian writes "In an example of censorware gone awry, Digital Freedom Network reports on how the website Blackplanet.com will not let a woman register because her name contains the word "cock", as do many last names. Thinking it was an oversight, she emailed the site administrators and was told, "unfortunately, the letters that form the word 'Cock' is [sic] unacceptable and will not be recognized by our system." The site intends to continue using the censorware, and if the woman wants to register, she can change her name."

Comments

my company's solution

[ChristTrekker]

My company had a client that wanted to filter "unacceptable" names like this. However, our solution was to have the "unacceptable" name entry send a flag by email to the client. The client then had an admin interface to manually permit/deny access. This kept the undesirables off the system, yet permitted legitimate uses of certain letter combinations. Seems like the ideal solution, to me.

*yawn*

[don_carnage]

Just another ridiculous attempt to save us from ourselves.

If you don't fit into the mold, then you cannot use our software|website|service. This theme has been repeated throughout history and it's no suprise that it's showing up here.

Censorware is wrong in the same that bookburning is wrong. The problem is, both systems are still in effect.

--

Censorware just doesn't work

[Manjit]

This is just another example of how censorware will never work. The problem is that there is currently no way for censoring software to examine material in the proper context. Until, someone creates software which can accurately parse sentences and examine words in the proper context, it will continue to be very easy to bypass these filters. It is like comparing a packet-filtering firewall to a statefull inpection firewall. The simple filter is only good for certain tasks.

I'm really surprised at the response from the web site that they will not allow here to register her name. I wonder if any of their current members will complain about it. Bad publicity is never good for business.

Re:Really..whats the problem?

[don_carnage]

Here's a simple solution...GO ELSEWHERE.

So if this were a large corporations site like CDNow or Buy.com or even Amazon, would you have the same attitude? I think larger coporations are forced to adhere to higher standards.

You should not cope with the problem -- you should work to solve the problem.

--

Scunthorpe and AOL

[Ratface]

I remember WAAAAY back, when AOL first installed a system wide keyword based filter. This was stricken with a similar problem when a guy in Scunthorpe, England tried to register his address. The solution from the tech support (when they had finally figured out what the problem was), was to change the spelling until they had a chance to upgrade their filtering software on the entire network.

Great to see the same mistakes being made by dumbass companies today!

AOL - putting the c*nt in Scunthorpe :-)


"Give the anarchist a cigarette"

Re:Scunthorpe and AOL

[anticypher]

Try this for a slightly deeper discussion on the subject. If you can read the whole thing, your internet isn't being filtered.

the AC

Re:Scunthorpe and AOL

[rgmoore]

Sadly not true. I was able to get to the site listed, but I'm often not able to get to other sites mentioned in YROL because of filtering. It's just more evidence of how ineffective internet filtering is, that some sites that really seem as though they might be blocked by filtering software aren't but others (like ESR's home page on my system) are.

It Just Occured to Me...

[jyuter]

Remember John Hancock? This filtering would also ban the Declaration Of Independence!



Being with you, it's just one epiphany after another

Re:Really..whats the problem?

[don_carnage]

You are the market. You decide. Take matters into your own hands. I would not be one to sit around and wait for the market to kill the website. What if 98% of the people don't have a problem, then what?

If this arguement were about browser compatibility then people would be outraged.

What, you've made a site that's only compatible with M$??!! For shame!

--

flip side: mandatory account names

[coyote-san]

This is mildly off-topic, but I'm reminded of the problems that occur when sites use mandatory account name policies.

A few jobs back the company policy was "first initial, last name." They stuck to that policy even when D. Adcock came on board. Even though I worked with the individual and am fairly laid back, I never got used to that account name. I suspect she rarely used the company email to contact people outside of the company.

At least she had the option at that time. Today, you'll find more work being forced onto web sites. It's not hard to foresee a world where employees are terminated because one bunch of whiny children insists that "We don't have to change our site, you change your account name!" and another bunch of whiny children insists that "We don't have to change our site's account name policy, you change your site!" and the only person actually trying to do something productive is left out in the cold.

Re:Really..whats the problem?

[nlvp]

What do you mean "Sigh"? Why should 98% of people who are content with a service be deprived of it because you have a problem with it? That's not democracy, it's not "the market", and it's not "you being the market". It's just small-minded selfishness.

I'm as opposed to minorities being discriminated against as anyone, and, like most people, being part of a diverse set of individuals, I probably belong to a few minorities depending how you care to define them. But that doesn't mean I think the success or failure of a company should hinge on whether their filters accept my name. As it happens, I've yet to come across a website that can handle my name because they can't do accents, and they tend to have maximum field lengths that are shorter than my surname.

If the company's actions are due to an endemic problem with their customer service or the quality of their business practices then fine - they deserve to fail, and the market will ensure they will as they will be outcompeted by other players and 98% of the customers will end up leaving - all for their own reasons.

But 2% of people being upset with a service is not a trend - it could be either an error term, or it could, in some cases, be a business decision - maybe the company doesn't want that 2% of the business, because it costs them 20% of their effort to go and pander to those customers.

If I'm in the 98%, I don't want a bunch of discontents killing a service I use because their names happen to get jammed in a filter. Luckily, it's quite rare for that 2% to have the ability to kill off the business, so I'm safe. If I'm in the 2%, and because of my name, I quite often am, I'll find another service, it's only a click away - although usually a phone call is enough to fix the problem if I'd rather stick with the site in question.

Re:Really..whats the problem?

[don_carnage]

As it happens, I've yet to come across a website that can handle my name because they can't do accents, and they tend to have maximum field lengths that are shorter than my surname.

So you move on. And then find another website with the same problem. And you move on again. This isn't the way things are supposed to work!

I may be reaching here, but what percentage of the populous is disabled? Probably a lot smaller than the percentage that isn't. Right? So when a store doesn't have an access ramp, for example, does that mean that they just have to "deal with it" and go somewhere else? Merely coping with a problem will get you nowhere.

Sometimes, it's in a companies best interest to "pander" to the 2% -- you never know, they may account for 60% of your sales.

--

back in FidoNet days

[Barbarian]

Not nearly as severe, but back in the days of FidoNet, I posted a message on a message board, only to hear from the moderator that my message had been cancelled.

"Please use your real name." the moderator said. I guess people assume that "Conan" is a real name only in movies and comic books?

--

Re:Typos

[www.sorehands.com]

It's not the cafeine that causes your typing problems. If it was the cafeine, you would correct your typos before you make the errors. But if you know the errors before you make them, would you still make them. Hmmm....

You know you drink too much coffeee when...

cope with a problem?

[www.sorehands.com]

If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem.

One may think, "big deal." And it may be true, for this problem. But then what about the next?

The World's Worst Email Address

[Demiah]

Reminds me of an old article I ran into on Usenet a few years back..

A student at college, Mary Emily Cummins fell foul of the institute's email address policy.

They took the first six letters of the surname followed by the initials of the forname. She ended up with cumminme@something.edu.

Would they allow her to change it? Of course not.

Re:Let the Market eliminate this one...

[arivanov]

No, they will actually make a living. They are Uta state library compliant for example ;-)

Some Asshole

[Lord Kano]

I don't know if this is true or if it was just company lore, but when I worked at Computer City almost 4 years ago my boss told me about how a cashier was nearly fired for giving a computer city discount card to someone with the name of "Samuel Asshole". The company's computers in Texas were designed to flag fraudulent names, well "Samuel Asshole" apparantly set off bells and whistles as well. The cashier was found and pulled aside by his/her manager and grilled about the "Asshole" customer. This cashied swore up and down that "Samuel Asshole" was the guy's name, as a part of the company's investigation the telephone number given by the customer was called and a man claiming to be Mr. Asshole answered. He was asked to come in to the store because this cashier was about to be fired for pulling such a prank. He came in and produced a driver's license in the name os "Samuel Asshole"

If this story is true, it can't be the first time something like this happened to this man. Why not just change the name?

Remember that SNL skit about "Asswipe Jones"?

LK

Re:Some Asshole

[Lord Kano]

Why should he have to change his friggin *NAME* just because some computers don't like it?

Not because some computers don't like it, because his name is ASSHOLE! Imagine getting attendance called in grade school..."Ass um, ah, Asshole, Samuel?" "Present".

If you had to endure a lifetime of humiliation like that, would YOU want to pass that name and that humiliation on to your kids?

LK

Re:Me

[Lord Kano]

I don't think that it's unreasonable for a company to do business in such a way that they assume that the vast majority of people's names will fit into a certain length character field.

If your name being truncated means that my bill is lower because the company doesn't have to pay for specialty printing equipment, I'm sorry but it's not worth making 20 people "feel better" about something if you have to gouge 20000 people to do so.

LK

Re:Me

[Lord Kano]

You obviously don't understand how computers work.

ROFL, that was a good one.

You apparently have never studied data structures. I'm going to assume that the database app is coded in C/C++. That in mind, names are likely to be stored as NULL terminated strings.

It would be easy program the system to read the bitstream for my name until it hits a stop bit.

Since we're dealing with characters and files instead of serial communications, I'd wager that they use a NULL instead of a stop bit.

To speed database access it is likely that everyone's name records (first and last) are the same size. You can jump from customer #2333412's name to customer#2334542's name by just doing pointer arithmatic. So if you're name is Dean, I'd expect the record to list your name as Dean00000000000. So that Dean, Bob, Mohammed, Newt, whatever is stored in the same space. Last names would be no different. To maximize the speed of accessing the database, it's best to keep all records to the same size. Beyond that, there must be an arbitrary limit. What's reasonable? 10, 15, 30 characters? That's not my call to make. You have to balance access speed, media costs, and memory requirements against some people being sensitive because their unusually long name gets truncated.

It's not like you can go down to office depot and pick up some extra memory for your RS6000 because you need an extra gigabyte of it to manage all of those unused zeros that you now have because you extended the length of your name data fields.

If seeing your entire name on the bill is that important to you, fine. I'll just stick to whomever gives me the best prices and service.

LK

Note: She's an attorney / It's lawsuit time

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

The article states that the woman that is banned is an attorney.

She should seriously consider filing a lawsuit.

Parties named could possibly include the site, the people at the site who refuse to override the censorware and the company producing the censorware.

Could set a very interesting precedent.

Re:Me

[Lord Kano]

A buddy of mine went to high school with someone named Harold Dick. Harry Dick is obviously what they called him.

I went to high school with a girl named Anita Seaman, while I'm at it there was an Anita Johnson as well.

LK

Getting it in writing

[Felinoid]

Not an easy thing to do on-line
But if you can talk them into faxing the policy and details in writing to you then do it.

I'd probably go for media fuss becouse lawsutes are painful media fuss is painless and cheap.
Plus you don't get accused of being greedy with media fuss becouse your not gona make any money off this..
and once in the media it's the "peoples" cause not yours... you walk away and live your life...

And millions of Slashdoters e-mail the site pushing for more details...
eventually they'll cave ....

Don't harrss or insult... just ask for details... be nice... just ask questions.. non pointed polite questions....

Discrimination

[Felinoid]

Barring a person for having an "unaceptable name" is discrimination...
Sence this is pure censorship by name the website is pritty much dead in the water legally...
However I think media exposure is better... It puts the website in the darkest light.... while she gets to live her own life in peace

Re:Discrimination

[dillon_rinker]

Discrimination is not illegal.

I can create a company called "Rinker Industries" and only sell things to people named Rinker. There is nothing in the law that prevents me from doing this. It might even be a clever marketing scheme...

In some situations, discrimination is mandated by law. You can't discriminate on the basis of age, right? Except for when you sell alcohol or tobacco. Then you can go to jail if you fail to discriminate on the basis of age.

Discrimination on a personal level goes by the less inflammatory name "freedom of association" and is constitutionally protected. I can choose who I wish to associate with and who I do not wish to associate with.

I believe you are thinking of illegal discrimination, the law prohibits specific kinds of discrimination in specific kinds of situations. Businesses may not discriminate on the basis of race in hiring, for example, but unless there is a specific law banning a specific type of discrimination in a specific situation, it is inherently legal.

Now, if I was this lady, assuming she is a member of a protected minority class, I would research my genealogy to see how many people alive today had my name, and what their ethnic makeup was. If most people named "Babcock" were African-Americans, she'd end up practically owning the web site, as their filtering of her name would constitute illeagal discrimination in that case.

Re:Dick?

[TopShelf]

The best was when ESPN was showing highlights of a NASCAR race in which one driver hit Trickle and started a huge pileup. The announcer couldn't resist the line, "now you see what happens when you tap Dick Trickle..."

Re:Me

[Lord Kano]

More overhead though. Where do you draw the line? Larger files? Larger access, search, and sort times result when you go with extremely long or variable length name fields. I don't know about you, but I'd rather get my bill on time and at a lower price than have some yahoo with a 30 character name be happy with the way his account statement looks.

LK