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Vint Cerf: Google Shouldn't Require Real Names
An anonymous reader writes "In an interview with Reuters, 'father of the internet' Vint Cerf spoke about Google's past push for requiring real names from their users — a stance they later backed down from after public outcry. Google+ and many other services work just fine with pseudonyms, Cert says, and it's better to let users pick the option that works best for them. 'Using real names is useful. But I don't think it should be forced on people, and I don't think we do.' That said, he also firmly believes some services do need true identities from both sides: 'Anonymity and pseudonymity are perfectly reasonable under some situations. But there are cases where in the transactions both parties really need to know who are we talking to. So what I'm looking for is not that we shut down anonymity, but rather that we offer an option when needed that can strongly authenticate who the parties are.' Still, the matter of pseudonyms on Google+ seems to be settled internally, at least for the moment. Cerf said, 'There was a debate on this subject and it was resolved. ... Our conclusion was that choice is important.'"
If that even is his real name. I mean, "Vint"? Seriously?
The value of anonymity is in the ability to express ideas that are not necessarily socially acceptable, but are contributions to our ongoing resolution of social questions.
When Google starts trying to "civilize" the internet by requiring real names, it's forcing us to associate our free speech with our jobs, families and others who may face retaliation if our ideas are not socially acceptable.
.. but what Google gives out with one hand, it takes back with the other: nowadays increasingly one cannot open a google account without a valid cellphone numbr for verification- and do not forget all the profiling that happens regardless if one is logged in or not.
The three laws of thermodynamics:(1) You can't win. (2) You can't break even. (3) You can't even quit.
Well, not really. The folks who like to launch personal attacks get pretty worked up about it when you post AC and they use a "real" name like "Frosty Piss".
Bud is not my real name, it's not on my birth certificate, or any official ID. Yet that's what everybody calls me every day in real life, and nobody has any problem with it. But go online, and suddenly it's some kind of major issue that I'm "hiding" behind a pseudonym. Nobody seems to get bent out of shape over Mark Twain's use of a 'fake name', etc.
I refused to sign up for Google+ all because of the required real name... I was afraid my Gmail account could possibly get canceled on me for not following their rules. Now I look forward to creating a G+ account and using a nickname that friends will know me by, but my boss and coworkers will not be able to search for =D
I changed mine to deleted after they started wanting your real name on youtube too. (Which was quite a while after they supposedly gave up their real name stance.)
But the article was not about Al Gore.
what -- thats my real last name ...
comment directly in my journal
This is the reason I don't use Google+ I have active pages with more than a million users in facebook, opened an account for Google+ when it came out, but I freaked out when I read about them banning users for not using their real names, even losing all other associated google accounts (AdSense, especially). No way I am willing to use Google+ along with AdSense if I sense that in any way something as trivial as using whatever fake name I want can create problems with my account. And hence, another website, with millions of traffic and social followers, does not even promote G+. Just a grain of sand, but I'm sure I'm not the only one. OK, So now, they no longer require this "real name", but even so, your other accounts are not independent. Being banned for any reason (I really never should be, never had any problems in facebook for example, but you never know) would result in ban from gmail and AdSense. If not so, that's the impression I have, and reason I still keep away (even if they probably changed policies). I need to be really certain I will never have such things in danger before I even touch or activate G+ again.
I know of at least seven other people with the same first and last name as me. One of them has published scientific papers in the same field as I have. One works in the same industry as me. Yet another has a similar hobby as me. Yet another of them is a rapist.
I know this, because people have confused me with them. I have received mail, both physical letters and emails that were intended for them.
I'd rather use my handle than my real name, because then people will not confuse me with any of the other guys. My handle is practically unique.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
A big problem is that even when they do allow pseudos, they seem to be re-prohibited arbitrarily and inconsistently. Maybe Google needs a Baby Belling so Mr. Left and Ms. Right of the Hand family can acquaint themselves.
(To follow up on this, I've still not visited YouTube since. Best of luck to Cerf, and I really do hope that real name issue is settled as he stated, but I didn't see evidence of that on YouTube and I increasingly feel it's too late for them to get me back. For their part, vimeo doesn't seem much better--they "encourage" real name use, and on the "DRM CHAIR" video's list of likes I saw very few users < 3y old without apparent real names--and LiveLeak has a big honking meebo/Google+ bar so they're either bought or want to be. Guess I'll have to hone my torrent release-fu.)
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
There is only one reason Google+ and Facebook want real names: advertisers pay more when you know the names of the people you are delivering the ads to.
Minority Report: "Hey John Anderton, you could use a Guiness right about now!"
Take some time to go read what Yonatan Zunger has written about names. He appears to have a pretty good idea of how important it is to people to have their chosen names recognized. He talks about things like how the appeals process should "start a dialogue", and so on.
What actually happens:
I've appealed a couple of times. There is no process in any part of the appeal to permit me to submit even a single sentance of explanation for why I feel a given thing is or is not my name. All I can submit is scanned documents or web pages. Could those be things I wrote? We don't know, but if they've ever checked the one I tried submitting, I have no knowledge of it.
When your appeal is denied, there is no explanation. There is not a single sentence in the boilerplate letter that goes out which says in what way their determination was reached, or what they thought of the evidence, or even whether they looked at the evidence. The appeal comes from a no-replies-accepted address. There is no identification of who it was who sent the message, there is nothing given to permit followups. Your sole option is to retry the appeal.
If you appeal a second time, the appeal can be ignored for months. Not denied, not approved, just ignored completely. I eventually went and posted on one of their help forums asking for information. I was told by someone I think was claiming to be a Google employee that there was an absolute requirement that all names must have a first and last name. This is, of course, not actually true -- there are counterexamples. The policy says that names will usually be a first and last name, but stops short of requiring them. Except, of course, if you're just some random guy, in which case, it's a requirement.
I go by "seebs". That is the name I am commonly known by in daily life. It is the name used to address me and to refer to me, by my coworkers, by my friends, by my spouse, by my lawyer. My mom doesn't use "seebs" all the time, but she does sometimes. If I'm in a mall, and I hear someone yelling the name on my driver's license, I'm unlikely to look, because usually that means someone else.
The underlying issue is that they have some evidence that some people feel "uncomfortable" when they enter a social community and some people have handles which are not "real names". The Google policy, they claim, is not to require that the name be a real name, only that it look like a real name, because that makes some people less nervous. However, it is not at all obvious to me that this justifies the insulting, arrogant, and dismissive way that Google has handled the appeals process.
The gap between what they actually do and what Mr. Zunger describes is disturbing, because he's nominally in charge. I don't know what's up. Are his blog posts not actually what he thinks? Are the employees unaware of the stated intent of policy? Does no one at Google have the technical know-how to allow an employee evaluating an appeal to send an email to the person whose name is under discussion? It seems like a simple email or two saying "I looked at this, and here's why I don't think this looks like good evidence that this is the name you're commonly known by" could go a fair way towards solving this.
Of course, so could just accepting that the name I want to be known by is probably the only name you can use without being arrogant and insulting.
The whole process makes it very clear that Google's employees are much more valuable than the prospective users of their social network. The overall impression I get is that they would much rather all the weird people just stayed off their network, so they could save valuable engineering and support time, and just not have to deal with us. I have in the past observed that the impression I get is that they would be happier if all the people with weird names, or who are unwilling to use their legal names (say, trans people who haven't done their name change yet), would just go away. Or die. Whatever, so long as the problem that a minority of p
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
As long as it sounds like a name you can use it.
Which is why the whole nymwars saga was a pointless waste of time. If anything, the only thing their policy achieved was to stunt the growth of G+.
At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.
Well, since the purpose of a name is to interact with other people, it is more accurate to say that your name is what other people call you. If 'Bud' is what everybody calls you every day in 'real life', then that is you real name.
Now is maybe a good time to post the link to the falsehoods that people[programmers] believe about names.
It's quite normal to have multiple names: one of my relatives was called by one name by half the family and another name by the other half. Was one of those names not her 'real' name?
If I am known by a nym in a community---a community that I interact with only using that name, then that is my name----in that community.
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
That is getting annoying. I've already rejected the use of my real name (the one I use on my Gmail account, which is tied to my YouTube account) several times and yet they don't seem to get the fucking picture and stop harassing me. There are other things on YouTube that they don't seem to get either, like the little "helper" pop ups that show up in various places since they changed to the worst layout YouTube has ever had, such as the guide menu. When I click "Got it", I mean it, go the fuck away and never come back.
On my Gmail account, they keep bothering me to give them my mobile number, for "security" purposes". I reject it, all is well for a little while, but they keep popping up that obnoxious "security" request. Just fucking stop already.
On Google Play, you can't even rate an app, let alone write a review now because you MUST have a Google+ account to do so, which I absolutely refuse to use. I don't use Facebook, Twitter or any other social media sites either, so I wish they'd fuck off. In addition, they now pop up ads that you must dismiss every single time you download or buy an app from Google Play.
On Google Image Search, results are terrible ever since they did away with the ability to simply disable SafeSearch. Now, you either do a search with anything they deem to be too risque being omitted or you add some kind of qualifier like "porn" or "nude" and only get hardcore porn results, omitting the shitload of things that fall in between.
On Google Search, results seem to be much less relevant than ever. It used to be that I could type in a query, using various operators where desired, and I'd have what I was looking for within the top few results. Now it seems like no matter how specific I am, I almost always have to scroll down or go to the next page.
Fuck Google. I've already decided that my next phone will not be Android based due to all of their obnoxious behavior, I've switched to Bing, I've switched IM over to Skype and I'm seriously thinking about switching to a different email service. The only service that I can't find an adequate replacement for yet it YouTube, because it has the most content and most viewers.