Google Launches Identity Verification Badge Scheme

theodp writes "CNET reports that rather than backing down after complaints about its insistence that Google+ user accounts be opened under a real name, Google has upped the ante and will pin 'verification badges' on users in an effort to assure people that 'the person you're adding to a circle is really who they claim to be.' In a Friday night post, Google employee Wen-Ai Yu explained that the Google+ team is initially 'focused on verifying public figures, celebrities, and people who have been added to a large number of Circles, but we're working on expanding this to more folks.'"

Comments

But...

[garatheus]

I'm getting to the point where I no longer like Google, nor it's products. Verify this, Google+ that, really now.

Custom hosting is on the cheap (for email), you can use something like DuckDuckGo for searches (not quite as good as some of the others I guess, but still not that bad), and Diaspora (if it ever really gets out) for your social networking goodness (goes with the custom hosting)...

Ultimately, the largest schlep is the migration from everything-gmail-oriented to everything @domain.name oriented (forums etc).

I demand the right to determine...

[John Allsup]

Consider someone saying "I demand the right to determine my own Real Name. It's mine after all and I reserve the right to change it. Not that I will, but I don't want some busybody in Google telling me I can't." How do you tell them that they don't determine their real name, and have no choice in the matter, save for deed poll.

Re:I demand the right to determine...

[David Gerard]

The essential problem is the same thing that killed Friendster and Buzz - it's the common startup failure mode where they decide how they want the users to use the service, the users have their own ideas, and they end up b anning large chunks of their userbase to disastrous effect.

If you want users, you have to not piss off a huge proportion of your userbase. Stupid startups forget this and die; smart ones realise the users will tell them what business they're actually in. But if the company is large enough, and you have a sufficiently arrogant ex-MS VP on the case, stupidity can run for really quite some time.

G+ is fantastic software. It's really nice to use. It kills office productivity way deader than Facebook. But half my stream is people outraged at the names fuckup.

People are seriously talking about leaving all Google services (and posting how-to FAQs). They're even contemplating using Bing for search. Just how toxic do you need to make your brand for people to contemplate using Bing?

Same as Twitter, then?

[Kelson]

This sounds basically the same as the "Verified Account" badge on Twitter that's used to identify high-profile celebrities as not being impostors.

Privacy vs Transparency

[h00manist]

I guess the only real alternative for the future is insist on complete transparency from all authorities. Because they are going to have increasing "transparency", or rather, espionage, on everything the entire population does, whether or not we like it, approve of it, or legalize it. We can't really control the authorities, they simply state they don't collect any data on our activities, only on crime, but it is just not believable. Technology simply makes it possible and ever easier to collect, sort, exchange, etc, vast amounts of data. And we know well that data tends to go free all over the place, with little control. Our only alternative is to increasingly see more of what they are doing, too.

Re:Privacy vs Transparency

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe we do care and actually do like it. Data mining seems to be a derogatory term among slashdot users, but have you ever thought that by doing so companies are finding out about what we really want and delivering it to us? Insurance companies are able to asses more information about you and give lower rates to those who pose the least risk. Same with banks. Advertising companies can show us products we might actually be interested in, instead of a 20 year old female seeing adds for generic viagra.

I would say 95% of the information companies collect about us actually benefits us or society. The other 5% is what I worry about, and I think like the poster above you that if we forced companies to be as transparent about what they are doing as the users, it really wouldn't be a problem.

Currently companies hold all the power in collection of personal information and secrets, but a little legislation can fix that.

What about companies, bands, and trade names?

[MobyDisk]

Where does Google draw the line? Do they allow "vanity" pages like is common for bands, non-profit organizations, and small businesses? What about celebrities who don't use their own name. Ex: Can Miley Cyrus create a "Hannah Montana" page? How about "Hulk Hogan" or various rappers?

On the (small) plus side...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

While I deeply dislike the increasing trend(among Google, facebook, et. al.) to try to pin real IDs to users for fun and profit, I do think that there is one upside:

Historically, people have vastly overestimated the degree of anonymity they enjoy on the internet. IPs are pretty readily geolocated(and ISPs certainly don't have any trouble correlating them with CC details...), correlation of snippets of social networking information can be quite powerful, persistent tracking cookies and similar trickery do their job, and so forth.

In a way, then, the more visible, public, deployments of real-name requirements, automated facial recognition, etc. are really a public debut of what the pros have already had on virtually everybody who isn't a cypherpunk or a hermit for some time now. Hopefully public squeamishness will prove useful...

Re:please stand up

[justforgetme]

I think that the Internet has worked and evolved quite fine without a Fascist governor screening, tagging and branding you.