Unfortunately, the cure for cancer involves HIV, the MIT drug actually kills _all_ viruses, not just the common cold, and this new engine/fuel system is radioactive.
So what will actually happen is the MIT drug will kill the cancer cure just as our new cars are giving us all cancer.
This is why pseudonyms are good. I never post anything on Facebook because i care about my privacy. One sites where i can mask my public presence with a pseudonym i post quite a lot of stuff. I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon and say "people who give up their privacy so they can try to be popular on Facebook" are losers, i just think there's no good reason why we can't have the options of choosing both privacy _and_ popularity/posting.
I don't know what their reasons are, but it seems like a good idea to me. All cards should be designed around electricity as the motive force, making it easy to swap out power plant designs. It would be incredibly useful if you could swap out power supplies after market, but even if that was impractical it would still be useful during the design and assembly stages to have a relatively unified design for everything besides the power plant.
Yes, that was kind of the point, i was arguing that not everyone wanted to use Facebook in the same way as the previous poster claimed. I was certainly not trying to argue that everyone wants to use it in the same way i do, which was the reason for the prominent use of "the purposes for which i use Facebook" in the bit you quoted.
Actually i did spell it right when i did the search, i just screwed up when writing the post. However when i tried "Eric S Raymond" it only returned one result, someone named "Cathy Raymond." When i reduced it to just "Eric Raymond" is when i got the 10+ results.
So which one of those ten pictures is him? I have no clue what he looks like, so...
I'm given to understand that a lot of straight women prefer macs. (Although i have no information on whether the corollary that homosexual women prefer androids is true or not.)
I've often wondered why FedEx/UPS/USPS could never give me a better prediction than "sometime this day." (I think one of the three may have narrowed it down some, but not much.)
They've got the same trucks doing mostly the same routes every day, they've got to be able to make some kind of general prediction about the time.
Well first, i think having a discussion about how to let Google and people in group A have what they want while also allowing people in group B to have what they want is a great idea. I don't really care if they create a system that allows you to block me and everyone else who wants to use a pseudonym, if you don't want to talk to me then as far as i'm concerned that's your loss. And i don't think wanting to have that discussion is the same as insisting that Google MUST do a particular something.
Second, i think your belief that John Jones in Norfolk Virgina is really that person is pretty naive, unless you personally know John Jones from Norfolk Virgina in real life. Even if (actually, especially if,) pseudonyms aren't allowed, trolls and spammers are going to want to create fake accounts, to troll and spam with. And they're going to create whatever kind of name will get past Google's filters. There will be plenty of John Jones and Sarah Smiths and etc who are nothing more than fly-by-night accounts that are going to spam and/or troll as much as they can before they get deleted.
Ironically, i just tried to search for "Erik Raymond" on G+ so i could see for myself what he's been saying, and apparently there are more than ten people with that name currently on G+, and it's not readily apparent at first glance which is the relevant one in this case. It's too bad he doesn't have some kind of unique nickname, something we might call a "pseudonym", which would make it readily apparent which one is the person i'm interested in.
...yes, that would be the legal/technical term for becoming "more recognizable and unique" that the original poster cited.
My real name is neither especially unique and recognizable, nor is it trademarkable. However if i was the first person to come up with "Nostalgia Critic" or "Angry Video Game Nerd" or "Lady Gaga" then i'd clearly have just as much reason and justification to rebrand myself as one of those names as Sci-Fi did for switching to SyFy. (Noting of course that the _right_ to rebrand yourself is entirely independent of the talent and success necessary to make the rebranded name actually relevant =)
What i don't understand is why there is the constant expectation that people who want to use a service shouldn't tell the owners of that service exactly what they want out of it.
I've failed to see anyone express the opinion that Google MUST allow pseudonyms, but i've seen a lot of people express the opinion that Google SHOULD allow pseudonyms. Yes, we can all go elsewhere if Google refuses to go along with the idea and we really think it's that important, but i'm failing to see why it's a bad idea for us to argue our point.
And if we all just shut up and accept what the corporations hand down to us, how would aspiring entrepreneur's know that there was an unmet demand for a pseudonymous social network in the first place?
The author seems to think that the social networks aren't admitting that's why they want use to use real names, which is correct. It's perfectly reasonable to attack the pretense that they put forth, that it improves the quality of the network and/or it's for our own good, until they can no longer pretend that that pretense is justifiable. If they eventually admit to the real reason it will be much easier to attack that justification as well.
Does it? Who decides what the purpose of Facebook is? Certainly the people who own Facebook can try to direct things, but isn't the purpose of Facebook just as much what the users of Facebook actually use it for?
Personally, i use Facebook for the exact same reasons i use other social networks for, to keep track of what's going on with my friends. Those friends will tell me what their profile is on the their favorite network site, whether they're using a pseudonym or not. I don't care if some idiot that i didn't like in high school and didn't care enough about to keep in touch with can find me now. If there actually was someone who i've lost track with but want to reconnect with i'm easily findable through my webpage or main email address, and they can just ask for my social network profiles that way. Real names are not necessary for the purposes for which i use Facebook and other social networking sites.
We've been over this before. If a company is selling your data (Facebook, to the best of my knowledge) then yes, linking it to your real name is useful. That's a pretty crappy reason though and we shouldn't encourage it (in fact it would be nice if it was outlawed, though that's just wishful thinking,) but it is a reason.
If the company is just selling advertising directed at you (Google, to the best of my knowledge) then what difference does it make if i use a pseudonym or not? They can collect information about me just as easily and sell advertising directed at me either way. Even if i "fool" them by logging in two or three times under different names that just means they can collect information on each of those profiles and sell two or three times as much advertising.
And if i'm afraid to indulge my interest in invisible pink unicorn pornography while logged in under my real name and a social network enforces a real name policy, then either i'm not going to log into that network at all (total loss of revenue) or i'm just going to avoid some of my favorite activities on that network (partial loss of revenue since their advertising won't be as well tailored to my actual interests.)
When you come right down to it, every decision is a binary decision. Either you do what the program is asking or you don't. You can, and people/systems almost always do, break big decisions down into smaller questions, but you still have to make a binary choice on each of the smaller decisions. Either i grant this program the right to make changes to this file or i don't. I suppose you could implement some kind of system where you only did half of what the program asked, but i assure you that system would be an unmitigated disaster. Letting the program write just half the bytes it wanted to the file would almost certainly be worse than either saying yes or no to the whole write.
And are you somehow under the impression that every new recruit is given complete and total access to the entire military network? I suppose having never been in the military i can't deny that with 100% confidence, but i'm pretty sure that the US has at least as good IT security in place as every single corporation in existence with more than about a dozen people working for it. Given that not a single soldier has taken the opportunity to launch a full scale nuclear war against another country seems to back up that notion.
"A few clicks"? Here's the process i went through to get Firefox4+ looking like the old style Firefox i want. Note first of all that i'm not sure this list is complete, the last time i needed to use it i found that i'd missed a couple steps. I think i wrote them down at the time, but i can't be sure of that. Also, it's still not perfect. The status bar in particular is still a little wonky.
View->Toolbars->
- Menu, Navigation
- Turn off Tabs on Top
Tools->Options
- General: Always ask me where to save
Add-Ons:
- Status-4-Evar 2011.07.20.21
- New Tabs at the End 1.0 (not always necessary? Why not?)
- Menu Editor 1.2.7
- Firefox 3 Theme for Firefox 4.0
- Switch to Tab No More 1.0
- Active Stop Button 1.4.9
- Back/forward dropmarker 1.0
- Remove New Tab Button 1.0
- Stylish 1.2
Right-click on toolbar->Customize
Move home/stop buttons (currently have to put stop before reload, or they'll merge)
Make sure "Icons" and "Use Small Icons" are selected
Stylish: // Remove "Tab Groups" from tab list
#menu_tabview,
#alltabs-popup-separator
{display: none !important; }
That's a bit more than "a few clicks" and enough that i think a "classic" version of Firefox would be justifiable. Not to mention the risk that at any future upgrade they could re-break one of these fixes, or break something entirely new, possibly in a way that can't be easily corrected with just "a few clicks."
I don't think most of the people who are actually rioting are pissed at their government, they've probably paid pretty little attention to what the government has been doing in general. They're pissed at their society, because they're jobless and have no future prospects. That has very little to do with what the government has or hasn't done recently and a lot more to do with persistent problems that technology has brought about but society hasn't been very effective in dealing with.
At least that's certainly the impression that the writer of this article gives.
"Privacy advocates accuse it of running roughshod over individual rights. As a result, it's becoming more cautious and risk-averse."
Maybe that other stuff is giving them some pause, but i don't seem them becoming any more hesitant because of privacy advocates. Last i heard Google was refusing to budge on the pseudonyms issue for G+ despite continual criticism from privacy advocates as well as numerous other parties.
Some lust for gold and silver, and some for gems and jewels
But some want greater treasures, and they use their software tools
For some of us quest for knowledge, and we wants it undefiled,
But now and then you get a troll who thinks he's Oscar Wilde.
Beware the Wiki Pirates, who sail the server seas.
They flaunt their fake credentials and their advanced degrees.
They control the information with bullying moderation,
'Cause arrogance and online swagger trump your expertise.
No matter what your sources, no matter whom you cite,
He doesn't want to hear it, 'cause he knows for sure he's right
There is no compromising, no bargain or accord,
He's never heard of you, or doesn't like you, or he's bored.
Beware the Wiki Pirates, they love to wield their clout
All day they'll argue details that no one cares about
They don't see as overreachin' their demands for page deletion
Web pages are in short supply, and what if we run out?
Yo ho, yo ho, no one ever thought,
Yo ho, yo ho, in this web we'd be caught,
The Wiki's meant to document the stuff the mainstream missed,
Instead we've got a pompous sot who's building up his wrist.
So if ye've got a subject that really interests you,
Beware the Wikipirates, they've got nothing else to do.
Someday we'll have a knowledge base with all you want and need,
Till then we'll take cold comfort that they're likely not to breed.
Beware the Wiki Pirates, who whine at our attacks.
They're only trying to help us, never mind the rules and facts.
They're just honest, not unpleasant, it's not their fault that we're peasants,
If we'd only see their brilliance, everybody could relax.
Beware the Wiki Pirates, that basement-dwellin' band.
They regulate and obfuscate what they don't understand.
The grief they give ya will reduce ya to trivia and minutiae,
And prayin' that you really do get banned,
Only "public noteriety" will get you in their library,
Be grateful they're all lost at sea... they'd try to delete the land.
First, Google doesn't only sell click-throughs, they also do cost per view ads.
Second, your argument makes even less sense when talking about cost per click ads. Putting aside the case of people who are intentionally trying to break the system (because those people will always find a way around whatever security you try to implement) who clicks on the same ad more than once? And of those, who clicks on an ad, then logs into a different account and clicks on the same ad again? Certainly the odds of that happening aren't any greater than the numerous other scenarios where they same person could click on the same ad and yet get counted as a different entity. (Logged in vs logged out, at home vs at work, using own computer vs using a friend's/SO's computer, etc.)
Since they only pay when you click, and that usually only happens once, it is entirely to the benefit of the company to put those ads in front of your eyeballs as often as possible. I'm pretty sure the number of people who would click on the same ad all three times when logging into three different accounts would be orders of magnitude lower than the people who would ignore the ad at first but end up clicking on it the second or third time. It's a clear net win for the companies buying the advertisements.
Uh, so what? You seem to be missing the point. The company paying for the ad still pays for every showing, and they're paying for multiple showings during the same show even though they know it's mostly the same people who will see the ad both time.
Companies clearly think showing you the same ad multiple times is a good thing, which makes sense since there's scientific research to back that position up. That means that they're not going to be horribly put out if you get shown the same web ad multiple times when logging in through multiple accounts.
There is an "oil cartel" -- OPEC. But acting as though every entity involved in the oil industry, from multinationals to refiners, is likewise a cartel, is just plain silly. The amount of competition between different oil companies is huge. They're all selling basically the same product**, so they deal in very small margins, trying to out-optimize their operations relative to each other, with pure, raw scale being the way to keep their total profits up.
So.... if there were fewer corporations involved it is conceivable that they reduce the scale of their operations to skew the supply/demand curve, and thus raise their prices and increase their profit margin? Which would mean that less oil would be getting pumped, less carbon would be going into the atmosphere, and alternative energy would be more competitive.
In other words, a giant oil monopoly could be the best thing that ever happened to the environmental movement? That would certainly fall under the category of unintended consequences =P
Dear gods, how many times does this have to get brought up?
As far as spammers and trolls are concerned Pseudonyms are practically the same as real names. Unless Google is going to require everyone to submit a government issued ID before allowing them to create an account (and i'm sure that would go over _really_ well) then spammers and trolls can create "John Smith" accounts just as easily as "ImaTroll37" accounts.
And let's repeat it once more since people like you KEEP making this argument and KEEP making the same mistake.
Pseudonymous accounts ARE NOT THE SAME AS anonymous accounts!!!! With pseudonymous accounts you still have a "permanent" account which can be moderated or banned and for which, realistically speaking, Google has just as good idea about who you are as if you had a "real name" account.
Honestly, the supposed confusion seems so persistent by this point that i have to wonder if some of you are shills hired by Google as part of a FUD campaign.
Slashdot Mirror
Unfortunately, the cure for cancer involves HIV, the MIT drug actually kills _all_ viruses, not just the common cold, and this new engine/fuel system is radioactive.
So what will actually happen is the MIT drug will kill the cancer cure just as our new cars are giving us all cancer.
This is why pseudonyms are good. I never post anything on Facebook because i care about my privacy. One sites where i can mask my public presence with a pseudonym i post quite a lot of stuff. I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon and say "people who give up their privacy so they can try to be popular on Facebook" are losers, i just think there's no good reason why we can't have the options of choosing both privacy _and_ popularity/posting.
I don't know what their reasons are, but it seems like a good idea to me. All cards should be designed around electricity as the motive force, making it easy to swap out power plant designs. It would be incredibly useful if you could swap out power supplies after market, but even if that was impractical it would still be useful during the design and assembly stages to have a relatively unified design for everything besides the power plant.
...
Yes, that was kind of the point, i was arguing that not everyone wanted to use Facebook in the same way as the previous poster claimed. I was certainly not trying to argue that everyone wants to use it in the same way i do, which was the reason for the prominent use of "the purposes for which i use Facebook" in the bit you quoted.
Actually i did spell it right when i did the search, i just screwed up when writing the post. However when i tried "Eric S Raymond" it only returned one result, someone named "Cathy Raymond." When i reduced it to just "Eric Raymond" is when i got the 10+ results.
So which one of those ten pictures is him? I have no clue what he looks like, so...
Hey! That is completely unfair and uncalled for!
I'm given to understand that a lot of straight women prefer macs. (Although i have no information on whether the corollary that homosexual women prefer androids is true or not.)
I've often wondered why FedEx/UPS/USPS could never give me a better prediction than "sometime this day." (I think one of the three may have narrowed it down some, but not much.)
They've got the same trucks doing mostly the same routes every day, they've got to be able to make some kind of general prediction about the time.
Well first, i think having a discussion about how to let Google and people in group A have what they want while also allowing people in group B to have what they want is a great idea. I don't really care if they create a system that allows you to block me and everyone else who wants to use a pseudonym, if you don't want to talk to me then as far as i'm concerned that's your loss. And i don't think wanting to have that discussion is the same as insisting that Google MUST do a particular something.
Second, i think your belief that John Jones in Norfolk Virgina is really that person is pretty naive, unless you personally know John Jones from Norfolk Virgina in real life. Even if (actually, especially if,) pseudonyms aren't allowed, trolls and spammers are going to want to create fake accounts, to troll and spam with. And they're going to create whatever kind of name will get past Google's filters. There will be plenty of John Jones and Sarah Smiths and etc who are nothing more than fly-by-night accounts that are going to spam and/or troll as much as they can before they get deleted.
Ironically, i just tried to search for "Erik Raymond" on G+ so i could see for myself what he's been saying, and apparently there are more than ten people with that name currently on G+, and it's not readily apparent at first glance which is the relevant one in this case. It's too bad he doesn't have some kind of unique nickname, something we might call a "pseudonym", which would make it readily apparent which one is the person i'm interested in.
...yes, that would be the legal/technical term for becoming "more recognizable and unique" that the original poster cited.
My real name is neither especially unique and recognizable, nor is it trademarkable. However if i was the first person to come up with "Nostalgia Critic" or "Angry Video Game Nerd" or "Lady Gaga" then i'd clearly have just as much reason and justification to rebrand myself as one of those names as Sci-Fi did for switching to SyFy. (Noting of course that the _right_ to rebrand yourself is entirely independent of the talent and success necessary to make the rebranded name actually relevant =)
What i don't understand is why there is the constant expectation that people who want to use a service shouldn't tell the owners of that service exactly what they want out of it.
I've failed to see anyone express the opinion that Google MUST allow pseudonyms, but i've seen a lot of people express the opinion that Google SHOULD allow pseudonyms. Yes, we can all go elsewhere if Google refuses to go along with the idea and we really think it's that important, but i'm failing to see why it's a bad idea for us to argue our point.
And if we all just shut up and accept what the corporations hand down to us, how would aspiring entrepreneur's know that there was an unmet demand for a pseudonymous social network in the first place?
The author seems to think that the social networks aren't admitting that's why they want use to use real names, which is correct. It's perfectly reasonable to attack the pretense that they put forth, that it improves the quality of the network and/or it's for our own good, until they can no longer pretend that that pretense is justifiable. If they eventually admit to the real reason it will be much easier to attack that justification as well.
"which kind of defeats the purpose of FB."
Does it? Who decides what the purpose of Facebook is? Certainly the people who own Facebook can try to direct things, but isn't the purpose of Facebook just as much what the users of Facebook actually use it for?
Personally, i use Facebook for the exact same reasons i use other social networks for, to keep track of what's going on with my friends. Those friends will tell me what their profile is on the their favorite network site, whether they're using a pseudonym or not. I don't care if some idiot that i didn't like in high school and didn't care enough about to keep in touch with can find me now. If there actually was someone who i've lost track with but want to reconnect with i'm easily findable through my webpage or main email address, and they can just ask for my social network profiles that way. Real names are not necessary for the purposes for which i use Facebook and other social networking sites.
We've been over this before. If a company is selling your data (Facebook, to the best of my knowledge) then yes, linking it to your real name is useful. That's a pretty crappy reason though and we shouldn't encourage it (in fact it would be nice if it was outlawed, though that's just wishful thinking,) but it is a reason.
If the company is just selling advertising directed at you (Google, to the best of my knowledge) then what difference does it make if i use a pseudonym or not? They can collect information about me just as easily and sell advertising directed at me either way. Even if i "fool" them by logging in two or three times under different names that just means they can collect information on each of those profiles and sell two or three times as much advertising.
And if i'm afraid to indulge my interest in invisible pink unicorn pornography while logged in under my real name and a social network enforces a real name policy, then either i'm not going to log into that network at all (total loss of revenue) or i'm just going to avoid some of my favorite activities on that network (partial loss of revenue since their advertising won't be as well tailored to my actual interests.)
Uh, speaking of magical thinking...
When you come right down to it, every decision is a binary decision. Either you do what the program is asking or you don't. You can, and people/systems almost always do, break big decisions down into smaller questions, but you still have to make a binary choice on each of the smaller decisions. Either i grant this program the right to make changes to this file or i don't. I suppose you could implement some kind of system where you only did half of what the program asked, but i assure you that system would be an unmitigated disaster. Letting the program write just half the bytes it wanted to the file would almost certainly be worse than either saying yes or no to the whole write.
And are you somehow under the impression that every new recruit is given complete and total access to the entire military network? I suppose having never been in the military i can't deny that with 100% confidence, but i'm pretty sure that the US has at least as good IT security in place as every single corporation in existence with more than about a dozen people working for it. Given that not a single soldier has taken the opportunity to launch a full scale nuclear war against another country seems to back up that notion.
"A few clicks"? Here's the process i went through to get Firefox4+ looking like the old style Firefox i want. Note first of all that i'm not sure this list is complete, the last time i needed to use it i found that i'd missed a couple steps. I think i wrote them down at the time, but i can't be sure of that. Also, it's still not perfect. The status bar in particular is still a little wonky.
// Remove "Tab Groups" from tab list
View->Toolbars->
- Menu, Navigation
- Turn off Tabs on Top
Tools->Options
- General: Always ask me where to save
Add-Ons:
- Status-4-Evar 2011.07.20.21
- New Tabs at the End 1.0 (not always necessary? Why not?)
- Menu Editor 1.2.7
- Firefox 3 Theme for Firefox 4.0
- Switch to Tab No More 1.0
- Active Stop Button 1.4.9
- Back/forward dropmarker 1.0
- Remove New Tab Button 1.0
- Stylish 1.2
Right-click on toolbar->Customize
Move home/stop buttons (currently have to put stop before reload, or they'll merge)
Make sure "Icons" and "Use Small Icons" are selected
Stylish:
#menu_tabview,
#alltabs-popup-separator
{display: none !important; }
That's a bit more than "a few clicks" and enough that i think a "classic" version of Firefox would be justifiable. Not to mention the risk that at any future upgrade they could re-break one of these fixes, or break something entirely new, possibly in a way that can't be easily corrected with just "a few clicks."
I don't think most of the people who are actually rioting are pissed at their government, they've probably paid pretty little attention to what the government has been doing in general. They're pissed at their society, because they're jobless and have no future prospects. That has very little to do with what the government has or hasn't done recently and a lot more to do with persistent problems that technology has brought about but society hasn't been very effective in dealing with.
At least that's certainly the impression that the writer of this article gives.
Invisible to telescopic eye
Infinity, the star that would not die
All who dare to cross her course
Are swallowed by a fearsome force
"Privacy advocates accuse it of running roughshod over individual rights. As a result, it's becoming more cautious and risk-averse."
Maybe that other stuff is giving them some pause, but i don't seem them becoming any more hesitant because of privacy advocates. Last i heard Google was refusing to budge on the pseudonyms issue for G+ despite continual criticism from privacy advocates as well as numerous other parties.
Let's see, we can't use "Age" or "Edge", and now "Scrolls" is out as well.
For everyone who pointed out the _real_ reason why editors are leaving Wikipedia:
Tom Smith - WikiPirates
Some lust for gold and silver, and some for gems and jewels
But some want greater treasures, and they use their software tools
For some of us quest for knowledge, and we wants it undefiled,
But now and then you get a troll who thinks he's Oscar Wilde.
Beware the Wiki Pirates, who sail the server seas.
They flaunt their fake credentials and their advanced degrees.
They control the information with bullying moderation,
'Cause arrogance and online swagger trump your expertise.
No matter what your sources, no matter whom you cite,
He doesn't want to hear it, 'cause he knows for sure he's right
There is no compromising, no bargain or accord,
He's never heard of you, or doesn't like you, or he's bored.
Beware the Wiki Pirates, they love to wield their clout
All day they'll argue details that no one cares about
They don't see as overreachin' their demands for page deletion
Web pages are in short supply, and what if we run out?
Yo ho, yo ho, no one ever thought,
Yo ho, yo ho, in this web we'd be caught,
The Wiki's meant to document the stuff the mainstream missed,
Instead we've got a pompous sot who's building up his wrist.
So if ye've got a subject that really interests you,
Beware the Wikipirates, they've got nothing else to do.
Someday we'll have a knowledge base with all you want and need,
Till then we'll take cold comfort that they're likely not to breed.
Beware the Wiki Pirates, who whine at our attacks.
They're only trying to help us, never mind the rules and facts.
They're just honest, not unpleasant, it's not their fault that we're peasants,
If we'd only see their brilliance, everybody could relax.
Beware the Wiki Pirates, that basement-dwellin' band.
They regulate and obfuscate what they don't understand.
The grief they give ya will reduce ya to trivia and minutiae,
And prayin' that you really do get banned,
Only "public noteriety" will get you in their library,
Be grateful they're all lost at sea... they'd try to delete the land.
First, Google doesn't only sell click-throughs, they also do cost per view ads.
Second, your argument makes even less sense when talking about cost per click ads. Putting aside the case of people who are intentionally trying to break the system (because those people will always find a way around whatever security you try to implement) who clicks on the same ad more than once? And of those, who clicks on an ad, then logs into a different account and clicks on the same ad again? Certainly the odds of that happening aren't any greater than the numerous other scenarios where they same person could click on the same ad and yet get counted as a different entity. (Logged in vs logged out, at home vs at work, using own computer vs using a friend's/SO's computer, etc.)
Since they only pay when you click, and that usually only happens once, it is entirely to the benefit of the company to put those ads in front of your eyeballs as often as possible. I'm pretty sure the number of people who would click on the same ad all three times when logging into three different accounts would be orders of magnitude lower than the people who would ignore the ad at first but end up clicking on it the second or third time. It's a clear net win for the companies buying the advertisements.
Uh, so what? You seem to be missing the point. The company paying for the ad still pays for every showing, and they're paying for multiple showings during the same show even though they know it's mostly the same people who will see the ad both time.
Companies clearly think showing you the same ad multiple times is a good thing, which makes sense since there's scientific research to back that position up. That means that they're not going to be horribly put out if you get shown the same web ad multiple times when logging in through multiple accounts.
There is an "oil cartel" -- OPEC. But acting as though every entity involved in the oil industry, from multinationals to refiners, is likewise a cartel, is just plain silly. The amount of competition between different oil companies is huge. They're all selling basically the same product**, so they deal in very small margins, trying to out-optimize their operations relative to each other, with pure, raw scale being the way to keep their total profits up.
So.... if there were fewer corporations involved it is conceivable that they reduce the scale of their operations to skew the supply/demand curve, and thus raise their prices and increase their profit margin? Which would mean that less oil would be getting pumped, less carbon would be going into the atmosphere, and alternative energy would be more competitive.
In other words, a giant oil monopoly could be the best thing that ever happened to the environmental movement? That would certainly fall under the category of unintended consequences =P
Dear gods, how many times does this have to get brought up?
As far as spammers and trolls are concerned Pseudonyms are practically the same as real names. Unless Google is going to require everyone to submit a government issued ID before allowing them to create an account (and i'm sure that would go over _really_ well) then spammers and trolls can create "John Smith" accounts just as easily as "ImaTroll37" accounts.
And let's repeat it once more since people like you KEEP making this argument and KEEP making the same mistake.
Pseudonymous accounts ARE NOT THE SAME AS anonymous accounts!!!! With pseudonymous accounts you still have a "permanent" account which can be moderated or banned and for which, realistically speaking, Google has just as good idea about who you are as if you had a "real name" account.
Honestly, the supposed confusion seems so persistent by this point that i have to wonder if some of you are shills hired by Google as part of a FUD campaign.