Google+/policy/naming

About

Justifications

• Findability: Google wants to make it easier for people to find each other by name.
• Civility: Although Google has not stated this directly, a 3rd party reported that G+ VP Vic Gundotra "is trying to make sure a positive tone gets set here. Like when a restaurant doesn't allow people who aren't wearing shirts to enter."

Dispute

G+'s policy of requiring users to use only "the name your friends, family or co-workers usually call you" has been the source of a large number of user complaints for the following reasons:

• Google's enforcement of this policy has been somewhat arbitrary and ineffective.
  • Many users have been suspended even though they are using their legal name on G+ (e.g. Violet Blue).
  • Many users with obvious pseudonyms have not been suspended.
  • It has been shown that the policy's enforcers are easily duped by forged images of legal identification.
• Google's enforcement of this policy has not always been consistent with the policy as written:
  • The policy says you can use a name that people "usually call you" (for which a known pseudonym should be acceptable), but enforcers seem to be interpreting it to mean "legal name (or variant thereof)"... unless that name sounds too unusual (to their ears) to be a "real" name.
• Towards enforcement of the policy on G+, Google has sometimes cut users off from access to all other Google services such as Gmail.
• The suspension process has not been well-documented and has varied a great deal, though it has improved somewhat (there is now a 4-day warning period before suspension, usually)
• It is not clear what the purpose of this policy is, as Google's explanations so far have not correlated with reality.
  • The findability justification does not make sense because in many cases an alias works better for this, e.g. an author known mainly by her pen-name, or a user with a very common legal name who prefers to go by her unusual alias because it is more recognizable and unique than her legal name.
  • The civility justification goes against many people's individual experience as well as empirical data (h/t with commentary).
• known pseudonyms vs. legal names -- if the policy is actually to require legal names, disallowing even well-known pseudonyms, then the following objections apply:
  • Many users are known better by their online handles than by their legal names; in order to satisfy the "findability" goal, they should be using those better-known pseudonyms.
  • Many users would be placed in physical danger if they were identified by legal name.
  • Many users are in jobs where they are not allowed to post under their real name.
  • Many users have very common legal names, and have chosen a pseudonym so as to prevent confusion and improve memorability.
  • A pseudonym is typically more expressive of a user's personality than the legal name they were given (by others) at birth, and thus enhances identifiability rather than detracting from it.
  • Geek Feminism Wiki has a detailed listing of who is harmed by a "real-names" policy
    • another example

Information about users suspended for naming violations is here.

Links

Reference

• Google+ Pseudonymity Debate Coverage : Articles (online spreadsheet)
• #nymwars on twitter
• 2011-08-04 Google+ names policy, explained

News

• 2011/07/11 [L..T] Google Confirms: Non-Real Name Google Profiles Risk Suspension (I.E., Google Still Doesn't Get Social)
• 2011/07/08 [L..T] Anti-pseudonym bingo “People testing the Google+ social network are discussing increasing evidence that, terms of service requirement or not, Google+ wants people to use their legal names much as Facebook does. Skud shares a heads-up from a user banned for using his initials. Then, for example, see discussion around it on Mark Cuban's stream, Skud's stream and Sarah Stokely's blog.” The post includes a bingo card to keep score of anti-nym arguments.