G+/Google information everyone should know

[merhawk]

Andy Carvin of NPR spoke with Google Chairman Eric Schmidt for a few minutes. Per the conversation, Schmidt acknowledges/states that "G+ was build primarily as an identity service, so fundamentally, it depends on people using their real names if they're going to build future products that leverage that information."

Identity Service != Social Network, Eric Schmidt. And you're billing G+ as a social network. Just sayin'.

Todd Vierling looked into the Profile Real Name issues. He discovered that these issues are about more than just G+. It looks like the endgame will end up involving most, if not all, of Google Products.

[reposted from my journal]

Comments

[ajnabieh]

This is really starting to worry me, since the central place I keep one of my online identities (one radically unconnected from my meatspace IDs) is on gmail. (Well, actually, it's mainly an LJ/DW identity, but it all started with my gmail account, and that's what links it all together.) At some point, are they going to tell me that I can't use Pseudy McPseud's email account any more, because I don't have a birth certificate saying Pseudy McPseud? Or say I can only keep the account if I announce publicly that P McP is Real Name, and link those accounts together?

*taps fingers nervously*

[merhawk]

Hate to tell you, but they've already started doing some linking behind the scenes on some accounts. The speculation is that it was done if you used your primary email address as the backup email for the account.

That being said, it looks like if you don't use any services that requires Profiles, it shouldn't matter to being able to use the account. If you use a name that looks "normal", where normal seems to = White Middle America, it shouldn't matter to being able to use the account.

Whether you want to use your account or not, that's another question. I'm "lucky" in the sense that Google has always been my search engine. To fragment my data, I use different free services when I need a throwaway account. I don't do online calendering, I pay for my picture hosting, I don't blog via Google, etc. So if I lose my G+ account - I only lose G+. Many people who are on G+ don't have as much "freedom" as I do when it comes to how they want their name to look.