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Jwz: Google's pseudonym support "obvious bullshit"

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

#71

Post by mladenkovacevic »

chugger wrote: post #63
brc wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That describes pretty much every other for-profit corporation that we all do business with on a daily basis as consumers.

I don't think they're any more or any less evil than other large company. But this is just about keeping them honest on an issue that is a very big deal with most of their customers.

Also I think most of these geeks are pretty smart and aware of what's going on around them.

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

#72

Post by mikescar »

kb101 wrote: post #29
thwest wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are the best alternatives for email?

Don't know about best, but www.fastmail.fm/help/overview_features.html is pretty cool. It is what it says, fast. No graphics, clean web interface, runs quick on anything, including crappy old hardware or phones. Opera recently bought them so if you run Opera on your phone it is especially nice. Very reliable, hardly ever down and on the rare occasions it goes down it's usually back up within minutes. You can hook up…

I recently converted to Fastmail. $20/year for spam protection and a 1GB inbox. For my personal mail on my Android phone it's gold.

They have a lot of nice features for configurability too.

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

#74

Post by drewcrawford »

kb101 wrote: post #25

Wow, what a blast of fresh air, reading this. I miss the old Internet, when Aunt Sally still couldn't figure it out and certainly would be horrified to find her birthday party photos posted on it, much less would she even conceive of going and posting them herself under her real name . Why does online marketing have to be built around maintenance of a database of people's Real Identities® ? If it's a page full of com…

> E.g. "That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#75

Post by grosskur »

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?

http://www.tuffmail.com/ You pay for mailbox size, with no limit on the number of email aliases or domains you can map to it. They also host Roundcube webmail.

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

#76

Post by tptacek »

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.…

You think Google might be using government-supplied information to figure out real identities on Google+?

You seem like a pretty reasonable guy. I'm surprised you'd write something like this.

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

#77

Post by buff-a »

rryan wrote: post #58
msbarnett wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because: 1) The short, speculative rant is well-reasoned. If you disagree with his reasoning that Google saying it will take "months" to implement pseudonyms implies that their solution is significantly more complicated than simply "stop deleting accounts with names we don't like", it would be conducive to discussion if you explained your reasoning. 2) This short, speculative, well-reasoned rant is written by JWZ, wh…

I'm afraid I'm spitting into the wind here, but.. Let's say there is a right way and a wrong way to do pseudonyms (empirical evidence: YouTube, HN). You think Google would haphazardly enable them as JWZ proposes without making damn sure they had the best chances of it turning out the right way rather than the wrong way? Larry Page thinks without Google+, Google is doomed in 10 years (I believe he said that in an inte…

Lets say that in a system where you go to this huge effort to develop and then advertise a self-selection system (circles) that there is no wrong way to do pseudonyms.

Larry Page thinks without Google+, Google is doomed in 10 years

I'm a google fan boy. I use apps, gmail, gae. Today I deleted my google+ account. So if Page thinks that without Google+, Google is doomed, why (to paraphrase Vilos Cohaagen) is he fucking making it happen?

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

#78

Post by p4r4d0x »

justina1 wrote: post #14
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…

This. Thoughtful analysis is far more useful than these sensationalist rants.

Sober, thoughtful analysis doesn't get as many pageviews though.

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

#79

Post by davidhollander »

chugger wrote: post #63
brc wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Google is the real evil corporation but these geeks are too blind to see it.

Okay, since there is a singular, "real" evil corporation, are the other non-real evil corporations in the imaginary-evil or fake-evil domain?

edit:

A bit cryptic, my point is that "evil" has been overloaded to meaninglessness. It decreases one's intelligence to use it in an assertion. In war and throughout history, party A asserts party B is evil, and party B asserts party A is evil. If party A is truly evil, then they would have no scruples over claiming party B is truly evil, and vice versa, analagous to the Liar's Paradox. Entering this frame, and debating who is "truly" the evil one, is a lens more likely to obscure than clarify.

An alternative heuristic for assessing the merits of actions: Coercion is considered polar to freedom by many social philosophers. Does party A use coercion to force party B into making a decision that leaves party B worse off?

Does google use coercion to drive user registration?

Does google use coercion to prevent deregistration?

Does google use coercion to damage competitors?

Does google use coercion to forcefully identify the anonymous?

No. No they don't.

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

#80

Post by stock_toaster »

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 have tried a few other mail services, but finding one I am as happy with as gmail has proven difficult. Not even considering how difficult it can be to communicate your email address verbally to someone. Most people you can just say "at gmail dot com" and they get the rest of it. I haven't had to spell out my email address one letter at a time in quite a while. Not so with some of the other hosts I have tried.

The other gotcha for me is google reader. I use it constantly.

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