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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."
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.
Constitutionally Correct
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.
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Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
Remember John Hancock? This filtering would also ban the Declaration Of Independence!
Being with you, it's just one epiphany after another
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.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
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.
Have fun. Or failing that, be miserable with style.