And Sunday in Google Watch: how they screwed everyones privacy (except their own, and also people who avoided most of their products): Thanks to one crystalline moment of Google+, it became clear that a company we trusted couldnt be trusted at all. The Google+ so-called real name policy can best be described as a confusing, velvet-glove-cast-in-iron policy where users of Google+ are required to use their birth or government ID names — and when flagged, must prove it, and submit official documentation as proof. Google began its real name enforcement with mass Google+ account suspensions and deletions shortly after Google+ launched in July 2011. The whole mess is called Nymwars. Ex-Google employees were deleted. Writers, musicians, programmers and more were deleted. Editing your name raised suspicion and still risks getting you flagged. Google+ remained silent while Nymwars raged through the headlines — until it told press it would allow alternate names — which was incorrectly reported (at first) as if Google had begin to allow pseudonyms. This was shown to be untrue when Google told ZDNet that nicknames had to be proven with your real name and government ID. In the background, Google+ began unifying peoples identities (combining its background matching of users names and profiles) in Android address books. For LGBT, political dissidents, activists and at-risk people everywhere, Googles little Google+ project became a loaded gun pointed right at anyone whose privacy is what keeps them alive.
Posted on: Sun, 08 Jun 2014 22:34:44 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015