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Jwz: Google's pseudonym support "obvious bullshit"

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Re: Jwz: Google's pseudonym support "obvious bullshit"

#61

Post by methodin »

kevinalexbrown wrote: post #50
methodin wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So is it common knowledge when they kick someone off for using them? Did it happen after this announcement? Etc... All this article does is speculate on what Google will do in the next couple months... how is it even relevant?

"Whatever Google is planning cannot be [just not kicking off pseudonyms], because they think it will take them months to implement." That's relevant speculation, regardless of whether he's right.

You are correct - I did not mean to say the article was off-topic however speculative it was.

Re: Jwz: Google's pseudonym support "obvious bullshit"

#62

Post by esrauch »

0x12 wrote: post #49
esrauch wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They want to correlate my online activities with my offline identity. It seems to me that the only legitimate use of circles is with respect to people you are sharing with that you know in real life. If you want to talk to total strangers, then you want to be pseudonymous but you also have almost no reason to not post publicly. That's fine; there is twitter, tumblr, even HN fit that model. All pseudonymous posts, a…

You can be pseudonymous to google but known to your friends, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. After all, google is just the transportation medium why should it have any knowledge on whose data it transports, as long as it reaches the intended destination it's all good.

> You can be pseudonymous to google but known to your friends, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

That's all good in theory but it's basically impossible in practice. You have to specifically get someones username in meatspace to be able to start following them on twitter; that probably works for your close friends but not at all for acquaintances. There are a couple of dozen people on Google+ and Facebook that follow me and vice versa that I have some interaction with that I never would have just gone up to and said "Send me your google+ username" in real life.

It just doesn't scale well at all; you have to memorize the mapping from username to actual name for your entire social graph. I have no desire to learn two names for each person, one actual name and one that looks like "0x12".

If I have an old friend named Pete Smith that I haven't interacted with in a while that is among the 200 people I am following on twitter, it's impossible for me to go look at his recent tweets or at-tweet to him something awesome that reminds me of old times, because I have no idea what his username is. His name is Pete Smith, that's what I always called him and that's what everyone calls him, why is he using a new name that potentially doesn't even map to something that people would identify as a name. There was a time where I knew my friend's username on a forum was some insane misspelling of Obsolete Oaf, and it was just literally impossible for me to type it because it was something like Obs0le7e 0af. I even knew my friends username was (in one sense) and I still didn't know it well enough to type it in to search.

There is enormous value to me in having people's names online be discoverable and searchable by the name that I actually know them by. Google+, Facebook and LinkedIn provide enormous value to me, tumblr and twitter provide almost none, and I don't think that is a coincidence.

Your experiences may differ, twitter and tumblr are both obviously very popular. I'm really not saying that you are wrong if you want to use those services, I do think you are wrong to act like a company is evil because it is providing a service that isn't what you want to use.

Re: Jwz: Google's pseudonym support "obvious bullshit"

#63

Post by chugger »

brc wrote: post #54
nirvana wrote: post #8

I've been using Google pretty regularly for the past 11 years, and have had a gmail account since soon after it was announced. However with the release of Plus and the revelation of their policies on "real names", I've come to realize that I no longer trust google. Gmail accounts can be effectively anonymous. Yet plus accounts cannot be? Google does not need anyone's real name in order to track and advertise to them.…

I'm right with you on this one. I personally think the old 'don't be evil' motto is looking very tatty these days. That was always going to happen, I guess, but sometimes I find it very hard to find a difference between activities of companies Google used to speak out against, and modern Google. Google used to be the thing when it was a bare bones, super fast and accurate search engine. Nowadays trying to find an org…

Google is a false prophet hiding behind the veil of their "don't be evil" mantra. Google is the real evil corporation but these geeks are too blind to see it. Now they know what these guys at Google are up to.

Re: Jwz: Google's pseudonym support "obvious bullshit"

#64

Post by [deleted] »

esrauch wrote: post #62
0x12 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can be pseudonymous to google but known to your friends, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. After all, google is just the transportation medium why should it have any knowledge on whose data it transports, as long as it reaches the intended destination it's all good.

> You can be pseudonymous to google but known to your friends, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. That's all good in theory but it's basically impossible in practice. You have to specifically get someones username in meatspace to be able to start following them on twitter; that probably works for your close friends but not at all for acquaintances. There are a couple of dozen people on Google+ and Faceb…

[deleted]

Re: Jwz: Google's pseudonym support "obvious bullshit"

#65

Post by ww520 »

mladenkovacevic wrote: post #32
nirvana wrote: post #8

I've been using Google pretty regularly for the past 11 years, and have had a gmail account since soon after it was announced. However with the release of Plus and the revelation of their policies on "real names", I've come to realize that I no longer trust google. Gmail accounts can be effectively anonymous. Yet plus accounts cannot be? Google does not need anyone's real name in order to track and advertise to them.…

I think removing yourself from Google is a mistake. It will give anyone with malevolent intentions the opportunity to remake your account with the same name, pictures and possibly misrepresent you. A better way to boycott them is to maintain a static account. Simply take ownership of your identity but not give them any personal data about yourself or your friends. There's nothing they hate more than a user who doesn'…

I thought Google will verify the identity to prevent false claim of an identity, right? Without verification, what good is "Real Name"?

Re: Jwz: Google's pseudonym support "obvious bullshit"

#66

Post by kb101 »

blantonl wrote: post #53
mcantelon wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wanting support for pseudonymity doesn't mean you're always using it. I can see someone using a non-anon account by day, anon during off-time.

I still pose the question "why?" In social media, the reason you created your account is to socialize. I don't understand why in the context of developing and managing a business, one needs an anonymous profile.

Well for one, in the context of developing and managing a business, secrecy is often of paramount importance. Why does Apple go apeshit every time an engineer of theirs leaves a prototype phone in a bar? Shouldn't they just relax and enjoy the free publicity?

There might be times when you want to communicate with people on a topic, without their being aware of who you are and what you do for a living, which could color the conversation or potentially even jeopardize your business.

Maybe you need to maintain contacts and industry awareness without alerting your competitors to your every move or to who your clients are. Maybe you are a victim of corporate espionage. Maybe you find yourself in the unenviable position of needing to both develop and manage a business and be a whistle-blower at the same time. There are any number of potential reasons.

Re: Jwz: Google's pseudonym support "obvious bullshit"

#67

Post by sudonim »

thwest wrote: post #24
nirvana wrote: post #8

I've been using Google pretty regularly for the past 11 years, and have had a gmail account since soon after it was announced. However with the release of Plus and the revelation of their policies on "real names", I've come to realize that I no longer trust google. Gmail accounts can be effectively anonymous. Yet plus accounts cannot be? Google does not need anyone's real name in order to track and advertise to them.…

What are the best alternatives for email?

I've been playing around with OSX Lion Server installed on my home fios connection on a mac mini server. Apple built a webmail interface that's not as good as gmail, but works if you primarily use a client and just need webmail sometimes.

I'm not ready to switch to it full time, but have been curiously looking around for alternatives to gmail. In general, running an email server yourself is a bit of a pain.

Re: Jwz: Google's pseudonym support "obvious bullshit"

#68

Post by mladenkovacevic »

ww520 wrote: post #65
mladenkovacevic wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think removing yourself from Google is a mistake. It will give anyone with malevolent intentions the opportunity to remake your account with the same name, pictures and possibly misrepresent you. A better way to boycott them is to maintain a static account. Simply take ownership of your identity but not give them any personal data about yourself or your friends. There's nothing they hate more than a user who doesn'…

I thought Google will verify the identity to prevent false claim of an identity, right? Without verification, what good is "Real Name"?

I don't think they've started that yet except with celebrities... and I'm still unsure how that will take place, when or if ever.

Also I'm just suggesting he keep that firstname.lastname@gmail.com account... just to have it. But not necessarily use it for anything personally identifiable.

Re: Jwz: Google's pseudonym support "obvious bullshit"

#69

Post by sudonim »

ww520 wrote: post #65
mladenkovacevic wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think removing yourself from Google is a mistake. It will give anyone with malevolent intentions the opportunity to remake your account with the same name, pictures and possibly misrepresent you. A better way to boycott them is to maintain a static account. Simply take ownership of your identity but not give them any personal data about yourself or your friends. There's nothing they hate more than a user who doesn'…

I thought Google will verify the identity to prevent false claim of an identity, right? Without verification, what good is "Real Name"?

What techniques can they use to truly verify identity? When I set up my G+ account, they didn't ask for a credit card, or a copy of my drivers license. I'm pretty sure I could have put in Peter Parker if I wanted.

Re: Jwz: Google's pseudonym support "obvious bullshit"

#70

Post by tedunangst »

rhizome wrote: post #17
joshma wrote: post #12

I'm sick of these posts. What I got out of the article was "I think I know how Google should design its product, and thus I deem decisions not in agreement to be total bullshit." Personally, I prefer to respect the work they've put into the product and to accept that they may have insights deeper than mine. It's evident from Google's announcement that they see more complex issues around pseudonyms, and I will form an…

Why do you think they're hiding these "deeper insights," do they think we're too stupid to understand?

Hiding one's deeper insights into a market's dynamics is frequently a competitive advantage.
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