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Jwz: Google's pseudonym support "obvious bullshit"

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

#161

Post by tedunangst »

rhizome wrote: post #157
tedunangst wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If these Google insights into the undesirability of anonymity are so hidden, can they even be said to exist? As the poster asserts?

Asking if a hidden insight can exist is a peculiar phrasing, but anyway, one example I can think of is some study that demonstrated people using their real names were 50% more likely to remain active users two years after registration. Or "abuse", however defined, was reduced by 40%. Whatever. The point is that if Google keeps such knowledge secret, other networks that allow anonymous users will be at a competitive disadvantage.

I have no idea what such effects may be, I only allow for the possibility they exist.

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

#162

Post by ChuckMcM »

methodin wrote: post #133
ChuckMcM wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may (or may not) be surprised but when I was there a lot of energy was spent by the rank and file on not being evil. The challenge is of course in 'winning' and decades of research on this shows that people who really want to win will be a bit evil if they can get away with it and win at the same time. So what Google has is a competitive culture (for a long time you couldn't get a raise without getting a promotio…

What exactly do you expect them to do? They are not a charity or a non-profit. They either have to stay competitive or die. I hardly call that evil .

I can't speak for anyone but myself of course but living the 'don't be evil' motto would result in Google sometimes leaving money on the table if taking it would involve betraying some trust. When this comes up it is inevitably a privacy violation that people are concerned about, but sometimes its a bait-and-switch type situation like the new pricing for AppEngine.

I don't think anyone believes them to be a charity or a non-profit, but if you could show how a billion dollars in the quarter was not collected (reducing their free cash flow from 2.8B$ to 1.8B$ for the quarter) because to do so would have required sharing 'too much' information about their user's browing habits, or what they stored, how they used AppEngine. They would get tremendous kudos and support from the community and Wall Street would mercillessly pummel them. I mean really, who wouldn't pick a billion dollars up off the floor?

That sort of wall street punishment would depress their stock price, and that would hurt the employees who feel 'better' when their stock options are worth something than when they are worthless. It is a vicious circle.

Remember the discussion in City Slickers [1] when Bruno Kirby's character tries to get Billy Crystal's character to admit he would cheat on his wife if the situation was 'right.' (and by right he generally meant there were going to be no consequences, no one would find out, etc etc.) And at the end Billy Crystal says "God would know." That was a wonderfully crisp treatise on integrity, and it illustrated, the difference between externally applied values versus internally upheld values.

It seems few people in life have the level of integrity that Billy Crystal's character shows, and so the process seems to boil down to keeping enough consequences in place so that employees won't violate a company value, and having the will to fire people who step over the line, even if the company benefitted from their action.

'Don't be evil' is, as many have pointed out, really too squishy to be actionable. But something like 'if you have to choose profit over privacy, choose privacy.' would be. Certainly not as catchy though.

[1] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101587/

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

#163

Post by tomkarlo »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #162
methodin wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly do you expect them to do? They are not a charity or a non-profit. They either have to stay competitive or die. I hardly call that evil .

I can't speak for anyone but myself of course but living the 'don't be evil' motto would result in Google sometimes leaving money on the table if taking it would involve betraying some trust. When this comes up it is inevitably a privacy violation that people are concerned about, but sometimes its a bait-and-switch type situation like the new pricing for AppEngine. I don't think anyone believes them to be a charity o…

It's hard enough to figure out how much money a product will make when you're building, but you want companies to come out with SEC-acceptable projections for how much they would have made on projects they chose not to build?

It's very hard to figure out how much individual feature elements in a huge product or service earn or lose. It's similarly hard to put numbers on the damage to brand done by a privacy violation or breach of trust costs a company. Attempting to guide company ethics via financial metrics just leads to people finding loopholes in the math.

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

#164

Post by rhizome »

tedunangst wrote: post #161
rhizome wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If these Google insights into the undesirability of anonymity are so hidden, can they even be said to exist? As the poster asserts?

Asking if a hidden insight can exist is a peculiar phrasing, but anyway, one example I can think of is some study that demonstrated people using their real names were 50% more likely to remain active users two years after registration. Or "abuse", however defined, was reduced by 40%. Whatever. The point is that if Google keeps such knowledge secret, other networks that allow anonymous users will be at a competitive d…

Seems like pretty thin reasoning to hang the (great-) grandparent's assertion.

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

#166

Post by ThaddeusQuay2 »

One of the commenters on that article says: "The idea that anyone should ever need to show ID to use a social network is so fucked up that I find it astonishing that it is a point of discussion." Not really. I recall, in 199x, that a BBS required me to physically mail a copy of my driver's license, along with my payment, before they would give me access. It wasn't an "adult" BBS. I think that the requirement was that I was at least 18, just so that they wouldn't get into trouble over anything that might happen with regard to age minimums. Rather than the exception, the idea of showing ID, to use a social network, used to be considered a normal part of doing business.

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

#167

Post by esrauch »

vidarh wrote: post #130
esrauch wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

You are making a lot of assumptions. First of all, lots of us have friends or acquaintances we have never met in "meatspace". In many cases we do only know them by pseudonyms. Pseudonyms we now can't use if we wish to connect to them on Google+ I started out in the C64 demo scene, and though I never released anything of significance, there were at least at one point more people that knew me by my pseudonym than by my…

That is all well and good, I hope you can realize that the vast majority of people were not part of the C64 demo scene, and the vast majority of people meet new people strictly in meatspace (except perhaps online dating, which is for the purpose of meeting people in meetspace).

To say that a website with even 40 million users should be catering to the extremely tiny (and apparently extremely vocal) minority of people who want to share things with people without sharing their name with those people is egotistical at best.

I honestly think that it is you don't understand that you are almost certainly in the minuscule minority of people who have a pseudonymous social graph, and that it is only to the detriment of most people to have screennames instead of real names on a social network.

I honestly believe there are more blind Americans then people who have any significant portion of their social graph as pseudonymous, you are acting it's absurd that Google isn't catering to the C64 demo scene. There are probably dozens of design choices that are preventing blind people from using Google+ how they would want it, but somehow that isn't making front page news, why not?

> We don't carry around giant posters with a bunch of personal information tied to our full name.

And on Google+ you get to choose who can see any part of your profile except for your name. There is no giant poster of personal information that is public unless that is exactly what you choose that you want.

> Conversely many people very intentionally do not want to be searchable.

On both facebook and Google+ you can set yourself not to be searchable in general; that is a completely different issue that being able to find someon you personally know among the list of your friends, or seeing a comment on one of your posts and having no idea who it is because the person is going by a completely random noun rather than what you actually call them.

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

#168

Post by ChuckMcM »

tomkarlo wrote: post #163
ChuckMcM wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't speak for anyone but myself of course but living the 'don't be evil' motto would result in Google sometimes leaving money on the table if taking it would involve betraying some trust. When this comes up it is inevitably a privacy violation that people are concerned about, but sometimes its a bait-and-switch type situation like the new pricing for AppEngine. I don't think anyone believes them to be a charity o…

It's hard enough to figure out how much money a product will make when you're building, but you want companies to come out with SEC-acceptable projections for how much they would have made on projects they chose not to build? It's very hard to figure out how much individual feature elements in a huge product or service earn or lose. It's similarly hard to put numbers on the damage to brand done by a privacy violation…

"It's hard enough to figure out how much money a product will make when you're building, but you want companies to come out with SEC-acceptable projections for how much they would have made on projects they chose not to build?"

Historically this is precisely why Google has declined to provide any guidance at all. At the time Google starts being able to provide SEC-acceptable guidance on their income I would expect the creative people there will have left.

As WOPR would say, "The only way to win is to not play the game."

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

#169

Post by bigiain »

koalaman wrote: post #129
bigiain wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By getting a warrant. By not getting a warrant but saying it's a matter of national security. By fraudulently misusing your government id and claiming you have some right to the information.

They don't really need your real name for a warrant to be effective at identifying you. I don't think that the real name requirement makes any difference to law enforcement.

Yeah - I don't really expect any company to not fully co-operate with law enforcement showing up with a warrant in hand.

That raises two questions though.

1) How prepared should a company be to _require_ a warrant before handing over any of your personal data? There's a big spectrum between "Yes Agent Smith, we'll have that data ready for you as soon as you come back with a warrant", and falling for the "Hi, it's Dave - whats the root password" kind of social engineering trick.

2) Should they store that information at all? What would DuckDuckGo+ look like I wonder? It'd be nice to have a "social network" where you have a high confidence that they can answer "Sorry Agent Smith, we specifically never store that data on any of our users - would you like to see the source code that proved we don't?"

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

#170

Post by bigiain »

koalaman wrote: post #129
bigiain wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By getting a warrant. By not getting a warrant but saying it's a matter of national security. By fraudulently misusing your government id and claiming you have some right to the information.

They don't really need your real name for a warrant to be effective at identifying you. I don't think that the real name requirement makes any difference to law enforcement.

Yeah - I don't really expect any company to not fully co-operate with law enforcement showing up with a warrant in hand.

That raises two questions though.

1) How prepared should a company be to _require_ a warrant before handing over any of your personal data? There's a big spectrum between "Yes Agent Smith, we'll have that data ready for you as soon as you come back with a warrant", and falling for the "Hi, it's Dave - whats the root password" kind of social engineering trick.

2) Should they store that information at all? What would DuckDuckGo+ look like I wonder? It'd be nice to have a "social network" where you have a high confidence that they can answer "Sorry Agent Smith, we specifically never store that data on any of our users - would you like to see the source code that proved we don't?"

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