At the recently concluded Web 2.0 summit in San Francisco, Google senior vice president of Social, Vic Gundotra confirmed that the Google+ social network will shortly be supporting ‘pseudonyms’ and ‘other forms of identity.’
Gundotra was not very forthcoming about the timeline for implementation and did not divulge any specifics but said that pen names would soon be allowed on the fledgling social network.
This amounts to a volte face from the search engine giant’s earlier stand on the identity issue. From inception to the present, the network required users to sign up with a real name and photo. Those who defaulted faced the penalty of account suspension and deletion.
Google was so keen and vigilant on its ‘real user-name policy’ that it has an automatic search bot, which suspends users who it suspects of violating the policy, without giving the so-called offender a chance to explain.
In fact, Facebook product director Blake Ross had complained on Twitter about being banned from Google+ for violation of ‘community standards.’ ‘Community standards’, though usually invoked when a fake name is used on a Google+ profile, it did not apply to Ross, who signed up on the network under his real name. Moreover, he was not the only Blake Ross on Google.
Google’s real name policy is not popular and has not won any fans for it. People who crave privacy are always in favor of social networks allowing pseudonyms, especially, in situations where using a real name could result in a job loss or put a user into a difficult position.
To be fair to Google, it did respond by making minor changes, but by and large, the company’s executive leadership adopted the policy of ‘Don’t like it? Don’t use it.” In fact, Eric Schmidt, chairman, Google had said that Google+ was built primarily as an identity service, so fundamentally, it depends on people using their real names if they are going to build future products that leverage that information.
Now, Google’s Gundotra says that while Google+ was designed to be a community that fostered trust by using real names, the team recognizes the very valid situations in which another identity may be called for. Apparently, the issue is technology, resources and the atmosphere the company wanted to set with Google+. The company wanted to create a community focused on real names, but now it realizes that some people have legitimate reasons to use pseudonyms.