A Rose by Any Other Name...

As seen on Google+.

For those of you not paying attention, Google+ has started to come down, some might say fairly harshly, against those of us using an alias or pseudonym on their service. There are may reasons to use a pseudonym on the internet, whether it's for privacy, security or just because you don't like your given name.

• Take a political dissidents, for example. Many of our founding fathers used aliases when writing op-eds or letters to a from others who shared their anti-monarchy views.
• Or privacy in the form of someone who doesn't want their significant other, boss or children knowing what they're saying and how they're acting on the internet. Whether it's Billy Smith who complains about his boss on Facebook or Thomas Smith who let's the whole world know, anonymously, how his wife beats him on the weekends. Or whether it's Janey Brown who is trying to hide from a former lover.
• Or, let's consider the 6 billion people in the world who don't live in the United States where we have some measure of Constitutional protections against unwarranted arrests and protections of speech. What about those people? The people in China who are afraid to speak out against their government? Or the people in the newly minted Arab Spring who might be targeted for speaking out about what is really happening behind their closed borders.
• And maybe not as intense, but just as noteworthy is the person given a terrible name and would like to use something else to express themselves. Do you remember Mr. Anderson? Or do you remember Neo?

Robert Scoble recently spoke with Vic Gandrota at Google about Google's naming issue. He posted his message on Google+

Robert Scoble originally shared this post:
I talked with Google VP +Vic Gundotra tonight (disclaimer, he used to be my boss at Microsoft). He is reading everything we have written about names, and such. Both pro and con.

He says he is making some tough choices and that he will be judged over time how those choices turn out.

He says that he 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.

He says it isn't about real names. He says he isn't using his legal name here. He says, instead, it is about having common names and removing people who spell their names in weird ways, like using upside-down characters, or who are using obviously fake names, like "god" or worse.

He says they have made some mistakes while doing the first pass at this and they are learning. He also says the team will change how they communicate with people. IE, let them know what they are doing wrong, etc.

I pushed him to make more of the changes, like give us a good appeals process, etc.

He also says they are working on ways to handle pseudonyms, but that will be a while before the team can turn on those features (everyone is working hard on a raft of different things and can't just react overnight to community needs).

After running through his reasoning, mostly to have a nicer, more personal, community, I feel even stronger that Google is on the right track here even though I feel they weren't fair or smart in how they spun up these new rules, but Vic convinced me to hang in there and watch their decisions over the next few weeks.

I am on board and it will be interesting to watch Vic and his team. Me? I am having a ton of fun here and that is most of what counts.

I have a common name I use on Google+, Google Buzz, PicasaWeb Albums, various forum and messageboards: Jason ON. I not only use it on Google products, but on Twitter and other places as well. Why do I use an alias, or in my case a variation of my given name? Simple. My full name is unique. I cannot be anonymous like a Robert Jones or a Mark Taylor. When you Google search my first and last name combination I am the only one. Yes, like The Highlander there is only one of me. Even if you searched the internet for just my last name, there are only a 1000 or so unique people with my last name; and that's world wide, not just in the United States. My entire online identity aside from LinkedIN (for obvious reasons) and Facebook (so my old high school and military friends could find me) is Jason ON.


It's hard to be anonymous, have strong opinions or try not to offend someone's sensibilities when one's name is as unique as mine. I cannot hide behind anonymity nor can become lost in the crowd.

And what does Google propose to do to prevent my speech from being persecuted against by the government? We already know Google gives over user information upon request. Even if I'm using Circles and only my Public posts are searchable, who's to say Google isn't providing my real name and data behind the scenes every time I make a disparaging remark about our Uncle Sam? It's hard to be a political activist with a name as unique as mine when my go-to provider for services will readily hand over my most personal and private information upon request without letting me know or allowing me the opportunity to fight the request. It's almost a defacto investigative service for lazy government agencies like those using Facebook for research.

This doesn't even get into something as simple as privacy from corporate entities. I am job searching. We have all heard by now to control our social presence online because more and more employers are performing Google searches and scanning Facebook to determine if we're a good fit for their organization. Will Company A like the fact that I write scathing political commentary upon occasion, especially if it flies in the face of the company's agenda? Will the hiring manager approve of my atheism and will that prevent me from getting a job at that company? Will I be taken off the short stack because I wrote a Tweet condemning an industry practice?

Once Google ensures me my information on their servers in protected from in some form from the government or corporate interests who seek my identity for any reason what-so-ever, then I will continue to use an alias or non de plume on their services for my social actions.