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Google Bans Online Anonymity While Patenting It

Posted by Soulskill on from the best-of-both-worlds dept.

theodp writes "'It's important to use your common name,' Google explains in its Google+ ground rules, 'so that the people you want to connect with can find you.' Using a 'secondary online identity,' the search giant adds, is a big Google+ no-no. 'There are lots of places where you can be anonymous online,' Betanews' Joe Wilcox notes. 'Google+ isn't one of them.' Got it. But if online anonymity is so evil, then what's the deal with Google's newly-awarded patent for Social Computing Personas for Protecting Identity in Online Social Interactions? 'When users reveal their identities on the internet,' Google explained to the USPTO in its patent application, 'it leaves them more vulnerable to stalking, identity theft and harassment.' So what's Google's solution? Providing anonymity to social networking users via an 'alter ego' and/or 'anonymous identity.' So does Google now believe that there's a genuine 'risk of disclosing a user's real identity'? Or is this just a case of Google's left hand not knowing what its right hand is patenting?"

5 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Oh, Google is fine with anonymity... by SuperKendall · · Score: 5, Insightful

    ...so long as they alone know who they really are so the data aggregated goes in the right buckets.

    Nothing's stopping Google+ from offering a secondary ID you can become, while Google still knows who you are.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Oh, Google is fine with anonymity... by CanHasDIY · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ...so long as they alone know who they really are so the data aggregated goes in the right buckets.

      Nothing's stopping Google+ from offering a secondary ID you can become, while Google still knows who you are.

      Except for people like me who would leave if we had to interact with "MonkeyFucker-69" and the rest of their ilk. Some of us like the higher level of civility that results from real names.

      From my experience, anonymity has little to nothing to do with civility; I used to regularly post commentary on the website of my local (Gannett-owned) newspaper. Recently, they (as required by Gannett) went from an anonymous, PHPbb based system to linking comments to Facebook profiles - they, too, claimed that it would lead to "increased civility." however, this has been anything but the case. Sure, there are less vitriolic comments, but that's not because people are being less uncivil, but rather a side effect of the push for real names driving many, many of the regulars from the site, myself included.

      Adjusted for volume, the amount of hatefulness on said newspaper forum hasn't gone down one bit, and I would wager that acts of incivility have increased a fair amount. The only 'advantage' to people being forced to use their real names is that if they piss another person off, that person now knows who's house to firebomb.

      Not a feature I would tout.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
  2. Exactly why I'm not on Google+ by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "There are lots of places where you can be anonymous online. Google+ isn't one of them."

    Yes, that's why I'm not on Google+ or Facebook.

  3. Re:This BANS others from OFFERING anonymity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This prevents nothing from anyone, really. It's only corporations who have to play in the little corner they painted themselves into.

    Meanwhile the hacker community, hobbyists and all the netizens boldly go where no man has gone before, regardless of what some lawyer says or thinks they're entitled to!

    The patent system has lost its meaning. It's no longer an incentive to create. The single inventor could never afford to patent something, or to defend it in court. The big ones can. Thus patents create artificial barriers of entry and stifle innovation.

    Furthermore, patents are now simply legal weapons used to cement monopolies and prevent innovation from disrupting established revenue streams from stagnated giants who output more Powerpoint fluff than actual progress.

  4. And the pendulum swings by Solandri · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Once upon a time, when I first got on the Internet (late 1980s), there was no anonymity. Sysadmins voluntarily adhered to a policy where each user's online identity and their real identity were linked. If someone ever found a way to break this link, it was considered a bug which needed to be fixed. It was staunchly enforced by admins who believed the net would devolve into a morass of misbehavior if people were allowed to post anonymously.

    There were a few people running their own servers who bucked the trend, but it wasn't until AOL joined USENET that pseudonyms became a fact of life on the Internet. AOL allowed each account to have up to 5 usernames, ostensibly for families sharing a single AOL account. Obviously these extra usernames were quickly taken up by people wishing to post things online anonymously, which was good for free speech. But not surprisingly, spam was invented shortly thereafter.

    All that's happening now is that the pendulum is starting to swing the away from anonymity as netizens struggle to figure out the best balance between real names and pseudonyms. The people at the pro-anonymity extreme won't like it, just like the people at the pro-real-name extreme didn't like it in the early 1990s. But as with most things the best balance is probably somewhere in between.