Google+ stops forcing all users to use their real names

Users can now make up whatever identity they please on the social network.

Read the whole story

 

[siliconaddict]

Meanwhile Facebook is cracking down on this.

 

[dstaple]

Too late. G+ drove me away a long time ago.

 

[SmartDrv]

Minority opinion here...I think it would be best for Facebook and Google+ to keep their real name policy. When the objective is to connect with real people, I want to connect with John Smith instead of LordSephiroth1999. I'd want Gmail to use real names as well.

There is a place for pseudonyms though. Not that it offers any guarantee that you won't be found and recognized, but I suppose a pseudonym makes it a little harder for a potential employer to find those videos of you doing stupid or incriminating things that were funny enough to post on YouTube.

Any medium where you want to publicly share private/intimate information you probably want a pseudonym as well. You probably wouldn't post in "share your most embarrassing sexual experience" thread if you had your real name attached to it.

 

[bglick4]

Quiet Desperation[/url]":ko7ikx1n]

Elteto[/url]":ko7ikx1n]It is a business. Not a charity. It has to make money. The users are the product.

Is this Page or Brin? You really should post under your own name.

I think he's right though. Google does try and do this to make more money. I'm betting they can make more off of ads if they can link you to your identity. However, judging by the lack of acceptance of the superior Google+, this policy, among others, has reduced the number of eyes on ads, resulting in less money for Google. Perhaps, this is why they are finally changing. They make less money per ad seen, but have more ads seen overall.

 

[U-99]

I'm sure all 3 people that join Google+ this year will be ecstatic.

 

[precambrian]

zbeeblebrox[/url]":sgxr3ldy]

therealeffingaeiouy[/url]":sgxr3ldy]

I never bothered with Google+ so was not even aware of this policy but it was certainly misguided. There is a sentiment out there that holding people accountable to their real name will make people behave.

Thirty three years online clearly has shown me that is not the case.

Exactly. To be honest, someone should have debunked the Greater Internet Fuckwad theory the minute it was posted. Five minutes in a DMV is enough to prove it wrong

No, I'm here to prove that it's valid. I'm a very polite and respected person in meatspace. I even create secondary accounts to use for fuckwadness when I want to keep a respected account on a forum (no, I don't have a respectable account on Ars){of course, now you don't know if you can believe that or not}.

 

[dribble]

weathertop[/url]":2dxx9h1c]I hate changing personas every few years...

I rather like the fun of reinvention every now and then.

As for Google+, I've steadfastly ignored it and all the spam mail I keep getting saying someone's added me to their 'circle' (whatever that is). I do use Fb on occasion (false name, false personal info, though I understand they can easily figure out who you are just by analysing your connections) to keep in touch with friends around the world, but I dislike many of its policies intensely and would happily give it up if everyone else would. There was an open source project a couple of years back called Diaspora that was supposed to be "the people's social network" or some such. Guess it died.

I am routinely told that "email is dead" (not by people, but by the tech press), but I do most of my online socialising that way, group email conversations, several listserv groups and one-to-one correspondence. I use multiple email accounts and kill them off from time to time when they get spammed out or tiresome in some way. Save for posting photos (not something I do), it seems to me to have all the advantages of any SNSs and none of the cons. What's not to like?

 

[DaMaster]

Now, if only I could figure out how to remove the added youtube account that it wants to default to when then enforced this policy onto youtube, that would be great. Oh, and that's without deleting all the preferences and playlists already established.

 

[hecate.]

I remember how Google+ flagged my name as a fake name, and I didn't feel like submitting proof or anything, so I just changed it to a fake name and didn't bother using it after that.

 

[Falos]

dribble[/url]":1sgu9qxw]I am routinely told that "email is dead"

I have never heard this, but then again I don't do the facetweets or the socnets or anything. If I want to send a digital communique to a designated recipient I can't imagine anything but an electronic mail.

While it's more private (well, relatively) than other channels, I still put on the "Hello, my name is JOHN DOE" sticker.

I suppose if it had a (voluntary) field for income information there'd be people filling it in. What a state of affairs.

 

[Quiet Desperation]

weathertop[/url]":1cx1zxqx]I only wish it was safe to do what you do online as yourself and not have to worry about negative consequences for just participating (being an asshole not withstanding). ... I wish I didn't. I wish I could discuss topics as I see fit with no fear of that information being used against me.

This would require a complete genetic revamp of the human species, dismantling all current cultures, mind wiping everyone, and carefully rebuilding a new global monoculture.

And then that would fail, too.

So it's either anonymity or alicorn magic mind control technology for all.

 

[Quiet Desperation]

bglick4[/url]":37qeq466]

Quiet Desperation[/url]":37qeq466]

Elteto[/url]":37qeq466]It is a business. Not a charity. It has to make money. The users are the product.

Is this Page or Brin? You really should post under your own name.

I think he's right though. Google does try and do this to make more money. I'm betting they can make more off of ads if they can link you to your identity. However, judging by the lack of acceptance of the superior Google+, this policy, among others, has reduced the number of eyes on ads, resulting in less money for Google. Perhaps, this is why they are finally changing. They make less money per ad seen, but have more ads seen overall.

Yes, my heart bleeds for poor Google.

 

[SunGod]

Screw Google for what it did to YouTube with the Google+ debacle. I'm so completely sick of them trying to "unify" everything into a single "service". Guys, we're a product. The sooner people realize that, the more they'll realize that this kind of unification is a bad thing for your privacy. Don't worry about the NSA, worry about how private companies are using your data - you think you'r anonymous or protected? You're not.

 

[Player_16]

I spit in the eye of Google and Facebook with my "name".
Look me up!

 

[sockatume]

gadelat[/url]":2t1nq6g6]

MobiusPizza[/url]":2t1nq6g6]

The problem is the recipient will see "masturbator@gmail.com on behalf of johnsmith@gmail.com" on the sender field in some clients other than gmail, e.g. outlook

I tested it now with thunderbird and it doesn't do what you say.

You'll still find the "Sender" email address in the headers, distinct from the "From:" header. You can work around this for alternate non-Gmail accounts by specifying each account's own SMTP server and login credentials. Gmail will then use the server that matches the address.

The whole business is to comply with security measures against spoofing. A lot of email systems will quite rightly trash a message with a sender address (example.com) that's not recognised as belonging to the originating mail server (smtp.google.com). So Gmail's basically saying to the other mail servers "it's okay, although it says 'example.com' in the From field, there's a real Google user involved".

Unfortunately there's no way to do that for alternate Gmail accounts; everything is sent using the main account's credentials "on behalf of" the alternate account. Despite the fact that there's no actual need to use the Sender header in that context.

 

[saanaito]

+1 for the Iron Giant reference on the home page.

 

[hangfirew8]

SunGod[/url]":dmygysws]Screw Google for what it did to YouTube with the Google+ debacle. I'm so completely sick of them trying to "unify" everything into a single "service". Guys, we're a product. The sooner people realize that, the more they'll realize that this kind of unification is a bad thing for your privacy. Don't worry about the NSA, worry about how private companies are using your data - you think you'r anonymous or protected? You're not.

I think the average Ars user is well aware of all this.

As for anonymity, most folks don't like what the NSA or Big Advertising does with their data, but don't care as long as it doesn't impact them personally. It is more important to the average user that their boss or spouse doesn't find out they're voting for the opposing political party, unionizing, flirting, at the ball park when called in sick, or criticizing the corporation, and create pseudonyms for those purposes. Complete anonymity is only attainable on used laptops used exclusively on free WiFi hotspots, a level of precaution the average Ars reader is aware of, but doesn't feel is worth the bother.

 

[bregalad]

StillGridlocked[/url]":2dg4itx2]

uhuznaa[/url]":2dg4itx2]

StillGridlocked[/url]":2dg4itx2]I use gmail for family, friends and some business meanwhile I have a completely separate online persona for non Google products. I have refrained from using Google + for just this reason.

I just tried changing my Google + name and was immediately hit with a warning about changing Google account names.

"Your name is visible to anyone on the web.
Changing your name here will change it in all Google products"

So how does this change anything? I'll stick with my current for the most part untraceable online persona.

Couldn't you just create another Google+ account for that? Just asking, I've never used Google+.

Actually based on your prompting I ventured forth to set up a second google account to use for all my social services - forwarded my family and friends email to that new account and set it up so I could send as either - transferred google voice to that account and some other google services. I can switch if I need to and may imap to another account then imap into the new google account as google doesn't allow imap between google accounts. I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to transfer google voice though I lost the spam settings not a big deal.

Thanks I wouldn't have tried this without a push and this looks better. Many of my friends know me by a nickname only so this will work out well.

You've just told Google both your real name and your favourite pseudonym so everything they find anywhere on the internet bearing that pseudonym can be attributed to you. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the pseudonym?

It's like Bruce Wayne telling Google that he's Batman. Now everything Batman does will be logged under Bruce's name and vice versa.

The stuff I write about under my Ars pseudonym is quite different than the posts on which I leave my real name. Thus any outsider without access to detailed IP address logs would logically conclude that Bregalad and I are two completely different people. That's the way I like it.

 

[dogwitch]

just say you where wrong google. thats all we want to hear

 

[Kasoroth]

bregalad[/url]":3l2ett24]

StillGridlocked[/url]":3l2ett24]

uhuznaa[/url]":3l2ett24]

StillGridlocked[/url]":3l2ett24]I use gmail for family, friends and some business meanwhile I have a completely separate online persona for non Google products. I have refrained from using Google + for just this reason.

I just tried changing my Google + name and was immediately hit with a warning about changing Google account names.

"Your name is visible to anyone on the web.
Changing your name here will change it in all Google products"

So how does this change anything? I'll stick with my current for the most part untraceable online persona.

Couldn't you just create another Google+ account for that? Just asking, I've never used Google+.

Actually based on your prompting I ventured forth to set up a second google account to use for all my social services - forwarded my family and friends email to that new account and set it up so I could send as either - transferred google voice to that account and some other google services. I can switch if I need to and may imap to another account then imap into the new google account as google doesn't allow imap between google accounts. I was pleasantly surprised how easy it was to transfer google voice though I lost the spam settings not a big deal.

Thanks I wouldn't have tried this without a push and this looks better. Many of my friends know me by a nickname only so this will work out well.

You've just told Google both your real name and your favourite pseudonym so everything they find anywhere on the internet bearing that pseudonym can be attributed to you. Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the pseudonym?

It's like Bruce Wayne telling Google that he's Batman. Now everything Batman does will be logged under Bruce's name and vice versa.

The stuff I write about under my Ars pseudonym is quite different than the posts on which I leave my real name. Thus any outsider without access to detailed IP address logs would logically conclude that Bregalad and I are two completely different people. That's the way I like it.

I think it depends on how secure you need the separation between identities to be. For situations where security is important and you don't want the service provider itself to know about the connection, you would want totally separate accounts for each pseudonym, and always connect to one of them through a VPN and use private browsing mode. Otherwise, they could very easily connect them (internally in their own records) by noting logins from the same IP, or by identifying cookies in the browser.

There are plenty of situations though where I think it would be useful to keep several pseudonyms associated with a single account, and use different pseudonyms in different online communities, without caring if Google knows the connection between them. The problem is that for this to work, users need to be able to trust Google not to accidentally (or intentionally) leak that connection information, and so far they've done a poor job of establishing any such trust.

 

[ZenMasta]

So does this mean youtube will stop forcing me to login and choose who I want to post as from now on? Seems like more recently it has been trying to pull a fast one by not even letting me choose, so I have to login and then change after the fact.

 

[xizar]

VicG manually approved my G+ name, so I'd already gotten in, but I'm glad for everyone else who wanted this. Hell, *I* wanted this.

 

[heavyboots]

But (as of 7/16) they aren't bothering to unsuspend accounts suspended solely for naming policy violations. I was one of the original people to sign up for Google+ and my account has been in some sort of Catch 22 hell for years now. If I log in, it says it's suspended and I need to view my profile to get more info. Clicking the Profile link loops me back to the message that my account is suspended and I need to view my profile to see why.

Furthermore, Google closed down all forms of help a while back that allowed you to get help without being logged into Google+. I've tried multiple times to get through to them about my account issues (I was planning to try for an exemption at one point), but hilariously, every help/contact link I click takes me to a page saying I can't view this page.

Basically, they've locked themselves away inside their primary Google+ circle and are now wondering why no one wants to play on their site, apparently?

 

[fferitt25]

LMAO !!

This was a thing ?

I have several Google Accounts (attached to G+) -- none of which are my real name. Had them from day 1.

I think FB had a similar policy - all they do is force a double name field on the User - so you have to have a 1st and last name.

End Users are stupid if they actually go fill out the profile areas with all their real details.

 

[Papageno]

I don't even mind giving _Google_ my real name and a couple of demographic details in exchange for their offerings. What I object to is having my real name displayed for all and sundry on the Web to see when I (for instance) want to send a Gmail message that only reveals my first name, or post a comment on YouTube.

 

[DarthShiv]

MobiusPizza[/url]":7bpcxvxo]

gadelat[/url]":7bpcxvxo]For those of you who want to use real name in Gmail, use this option in Gmail settings.

I have been using it for years. That way if you have your main google account masturbator@gmail.com, you can link it to johnsmith@gmail.com so emails addressed to johnsmith@gmail.com come to masturbator@gmail.com and you can also write on behalf of johnsmith from masturbator account. I have this for years and all those years I never logged to the Gmail account with my real name. I never needed to since I can manage all my correspondence from my main google account.

]


The problem is the recipient will see "masturbator@gmail.com on behalf of johnsmith@gmail.com" on the sender field in some clients other than gmail, e.g. outlook

LOL yes you definitely want to have a good look at the whole process before "putting it into production".

 

[Spinfx]

On a tangentially related note, as an Asian software developer from Asia in 2014, I find it infuriating when software STILL requires you to use the first name, last name format. It's common for people here to have at least 3 'word' names, and it's not rare to see 5 or 6, especially for the ladies. Wherever feasible I bake in a single "full name" field and force my users to use that by deleting all templates stuck on the old fn/ln format.

 

[drpeters]

Vic Gundotra... if that is your real name....

 

[Andrew Norton]

I've used my 'established pseudonym' (K`Tetch Dureek') on Google+ literally since day1 (I got an invite from a hackerspace friend who worked at Google). So not a huge change for me. But a BIG WIN for nymrights!

 

[Abresh]

fferitt25[/url]":3v8yqv5l]LMAO !!

This was a thing ?

I have several Google Accounts (attached to G+) -- none of which are my real name. Had them from day 1.

I think FB had a similar policy - all they do is force a double name field on the User - so you have to have a 1st and last name.

End Users are stupid if they actually go fill out the profile areas with all their real details.

Not really.... there is nothing that Facebook asks for in the profile area that someone could not get via another method.

 

[MycrosoftHell]

Nijyo[/url]":378j5077]

Schizoid[/url]":378j5077]Will this be extended to Youtube? Will youtube stop trying to force me to use my real name?

I've noticed over the last few months that it stopped trying to make me use my Google+ ID instead of my legacy YouTube ID, so, probably.

Unfortunately I ended up shutting down my youtube account that was created on someone else's behalf. I accidently clicked ok to one of those relentless nag boxes.

 

[MycrosoftHell]

zbeeblebrox[/url]":rjhbi78n]

TK[/url]":rjhbi78n]

zbeeblebrox[/url]":rjhbi78n]

therealeffingaeiouy[/url]":rjhbi78n]

I never bothered with Google+ so was not even aware of this policy but it was certainly misguided. There is a sentiment out there that holding people accountable to their real name will make people behave.

Thirty three years online clearly has shown me that is not the case.

Exactly. To be honest, someone should have debunked the Greater Internet Fuckwad theory the minute it was posted. Five minutes in a DMV is enough to prove it wrong

Heh, there's a difference between being an ass in public (where you are effectively anonymous until someone goes through the trouble of identifying you - seriously, go play assassin's creed ), and being an ass where your real name which can be traced back to you is placed right next to your evidence of ass-itude.

Even still, did you see how G+ improved comment quality on YouTube? No, because it didn't. You can go to any video right now with over-500k views and find someone with a real name being a total asshole. Not an exception, but the rule. People *think* they act different with/without a pseudonym, but the reality is they don't.

You don't need the accidental social experiment that was YouTube G+ integration to see this - there have been plenty of real sociological studies that have shown this.

And the lack of diverse comments. I am never abusive writing comments but I didn't necessarily wantto broadcast my views in a way that someone, a potential employer for example, may hold them against me.

 

[daarong]

speedemon105[/url]"wowsv2z]Wait, so people actually used their real names just because google said so? People do realize you can put whatever you want in those boxes...right?

Google knows more about me than the US federal gov't... so sure... I could have lied... but it said quite clearly that if you did then they might shut down your account.

I've had a google account since the beginning, when they were invite-only... if I lost my account that would be really serious (lost calendar, lost contacts -both sync to my phone-, and who knows how many website accounts are linked to it). Because they were making serious threats I made the really easy decision to close my Google+ account... at this point I'm not too keen on creating one again.

 

[mrsilver]

speedemon105[/url]":3slzpad2]Wait, so people actually used their real names just because google said so? People do realize you can put whatever you want in those boxes...right?

Nearly everyone who knows me, knows me by my real name. If I'm on a social network then the chances are that I want people to find me. Otherwise it's not very "social".

If barely anyone knows my pseudonym (and I don't know anyone else's either - assuming they even have one), then it is going to make finding each other really hard, if not impossible.

This is, I suspect, part of the reason Orkut failed.

To make it even more complicated, no-one knows me as "MrSilver" because the pseudonym I normally go by on forums was in use by someone else on Ars.

(of course, there is the obvious point that Google wanted that extra information to get more details about you than they do already - but that's already been discussed)