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The Google+ Name Game Continues
theodp writes "'Sticks and stones will break my bones,' the old nursery rhyme goes, 'but names will never hurt me.' Unless, of course, you're on Google+. While touting what it calls a move toward a more inclusive naming policy for Google+, the search giant's Name Policy would still make Sister Aloysius Beauvier smile. Names like 'Doctor Stan Livingston,' 'Bill Smithwick DDS,' and 'Rev. Jim Copley, S. P.' are cited as examples of violations that could cost you your Google+ privileges. And since new Google account users are reportedly now forced to join Google+, one wonders if the Name Policy might even preclude one from establishing one of those adorable dear.sophie.lee or dear.hollie accounts."
So not only is Google inflating the number of users on their social network so they can boast millions of users, they are forcing everyone to make a profile that is public by default. How can you take Google's number of users seriously when you know they are only what they are because Google pulls tricks like this? And surely this is a seriously evil thing to do, too.
I hope your torches and pitchforks aren't nearby, because Google — the Company That Claims It Does No Evil — is doing something that might make you want to reach for 'em. Apparently the search engine giant is now forcing new Google account users to join Google+ and Gmail.
Until now, creating a Google account was quite simple. You could either use an existing email address or create a Gmail account.
The newly redesigned sign-up process for Google accounts now includes fields which ask for your name, gender (required, thanks to Google+) and mobile phone number (optional). Once you've got those fields filled out, you're led to a page which asks you to create your Google profile — better known as your Google+ account.
There is no option to skip this step and avoid the creation of a Google+ account (and a Gmail account), which is something you might want to do if you're interested in using only some other Google services.
Just more reasons for me to not even bother with Google+ in the first place.
I find it very odd that Google doesn't know better, trying to impose these strange policies on the internet.. Have they just discovered the internet? These people are crazy.
They are no longer "good guys", they have become just as much of an evil mega-corporation with no ties to their roots as the next evil mega-corp.
Buy an Android phone and you have to make an account. AFAIK, you don't need a .me account to use an iPhone. At least, you didn't when I had one.
So, you create a Google account just for the phone, separate from the main one. PITA.
I'm a little unclear on the failure mode here. If I am forced to create a G+ page using my real name that I won't use, then, um... well, uh...
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I'll join Google+ the same day I join Facebook.
i.e. never
I'm still 100% perfectly fine with google+ name policy.
Your name almost certainly isn't "Doctor" (well, unless your parents had really really high expectations from you at birth). Stop being pretentious. You paid a lot of money for school, good for you, your name is still Bill or Steve or the like.
If people know you by some name other than your given name... Hey, that's what that "nickname" field is for under account settings.
I signed up under a pseudonym and haven't been back in since.
I wonder how it will greet my next visit.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
I just signed up for a new google account and wasn't forced to join google+.
So you create a GMail (mail) account and you have also a Google+ (social network) forced-account...
And what's different from creating a Hotmail (mail) account and also having a Messenger (social network) forced-one? 'Cause I remember not being able to untie them...
Huh... Devil walks amonst us!!
Nothing to see, move along...
Well, that went out with political correctness thirty years ago. We no longer have the right to offend anyone, unless that person is a non-rich white male.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Not quite. There are ways to create a Google account without Google+ being tacked on.
For example, if you go to http://mail.google.com/mail/signup and create a Gmail account, it will automatically make a Google account as part of the process (of course). However using the above link does NOT automatically create a Google+ account. I know this because I did so yesterday, as I specifically wanted to make a new Google account without G+.
Of course, you need to know this either through research or someone telling you beforehand. All other ways of creating a Google account seem to force G+ unfortunately. Google sucks sometimes.
To all newcomers - people here are very close-minded and can't handle complaints about Linux. Keep this in mind.
Even if you are forced to create a g+ account, just delete the damn thing after its created. Google actually makes it easy... http://support.google.com/plus/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1044503&rd=1
I know people are going to be beating the 'is google evil?' dead horse once again, but let me point out the more obvious reason for Google's name idiocy - they're a full blown beuracracorp now, so they have no need for quaint notions like 'flexibility' or 'individuality'.
There's no reason for Google to take into account the complexities and strangeness of life, when they can just make people fit their views, like the immigration officers at Ellis Island who would substitute 'normal' American names for strange foreign ones.
Names are actually just the original bureaucratic way of designating and cataloging people, before they thought of ID numbers and databases. It's not surprising that Google wants to impose its own rules on them.
Till they stop acting like Schmidt-heads. Really, this grudging half-assed crap is hardly better than the Real Name Policy, it just makes it easier policy-wise for them to make exceptions for celebrities.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/google-tracks-consumers-across-products-users-cant-opt-out/2012/01/24/gIQArgJHOQ_story.html?wpisrc=al_comboNE_b
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They SHOULD allow titles. But it would make sense to appropriately tag the title apart from the name. There should be a place to enter a prefix title and a suffix title. Then in places where it is appropriate to display a name without title, it can be omitted, and where it is appropriate to display a name with title, it can be included. Searches can be matched both with and without (I know Google knows how to do that).
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Google should just turn that into a feature by gifting a S/MIME certificate to every user with an authenticated real name and of course support this with Gmail. This way you could finally have encrypted and/or signed email for free and would have a social network account you can use for everything you want to have published provable by you.
I will never understand what's wrong with having a social network that insists in real names. There are more than enough offers for services and networks that just allow everyone to pretend to be someone else. If you want to be anonymous or pseudonymous, use something else then. But having *one* option to have an account that is *provable* yours and a way to mail and write things that are *provable* written by you: What is so bad about having this option? Come on, what is bad about this? You don't have to use it. But if you want it or need it, it's there. Why should every social network work the same way? Why would we need more than one if all worked the same way?
Nothing against using an assumed name (as you see I'm not using my real name here), but some people are *insisting* in *nobody* ever using their real name in a way that is nearly manic. There are sometimes reasons to be identifiable and to be able to sign things you write and to have a way of being able to prove your identity. Really. Having one network to support and even enforce that is good. It's just one option. Having no way to do it is not more freedom, it is less freedom.
In Google's earning call 5 days ago they claimed that 60% of Google+ members "engaged" daily and 80% weekly. After being pressed on the issue they confirmed that they were counting Google+ members who accessed any of their services at least daily/weekly, not just ones who visited Google+ daily/weekly.
What exactly is Google trying to accomplish with their "real name" policy, anyway? I don't see what they hope to gain that's even worth the trouble of enforcing it, not even considering the ill will they're piling up.
"The Greens lynched a hacker in Chicago. Last month, but I think the body's still hanging from the old Water Tower."
I don't somebody at google could scratch their nose without slashdot posting a story about google being evil.
Just don't use google. Use microsoft instead, problem solved.
Unlike microsoft, google has no way to vendor-lock anybody.
I wond'T understand why this is so difficult and complicated to understand. Some services let you use whatever nicknames you want like "BigPeniz249", others require you to use your real legal name. If you don't want to use the services, you are free not to, but don'T bitch about it. Clearly, there are advantages and disadvantages to both approaches, and there are services offering it both ways, so you have a choice. In fact, if we forced everyone to allow pseudonyms, then as consumers we wouldn't have the choice of joining a service that enforces a real names policy.
This is still not a solution. People like 50 cent have been able to create Google+ since day 1, while others like Skud were suspended. Then it took them months to come up with this half assed non-solution. I have some friends who we all refer to by their nicknames. They have very little online presence so they cannot use those pseudonyms on Google+ as they cannot prove that they've been using it for years.
Vic, you are a hypocrite and and idiot. Not only I'm not going to use G+ I have also stopped using all the other Google products.
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Jordyn Buchanan is such a clueless idiot, he doesn't know who jwz is.
My "google services" are already too easy to tie together, I'm under the impression whatever my google+ account name is set to, applies to all my google services.
I don't want my blogger / youtube / gmail / god knows what else I have all tied together.
I know they are now, yes and in some ways, it's really convienient but damn I wish I had seperated some of the accounts or used a different name at times. I don't need them closer tied.
Facebook is / was a time sink, I gave it up and genuinely don't miss it, I'm surprised to say that - I'm not just being "look at me, look how reslient and progressive I am" - I just genuinely don't miss all the bullshit that comes with it. I don't need more of it with G+
I set up an account for a client the other week and they operate a couple of shared email addresses. Who would "accounts" or "sales" belong to exactly?
BTW Google, nobody wants a privacy raping "identity service" disguised as a social network. While I'm here, why don't you get rid of this labels nonsense on GMail and give business customers proper imap mailbox support?
Remember boys and girls: When your have a gmail account or search the web using Google, you are the product, not the customer.
That's actually "words will never hurt me".