Fire Alarm Companies

+ Google risking the loss of valuable early adopters by strictly enforcing a "realname" policy

For a company that gave himself a traditional web-style misspelled alias make to distinguish themselves online, Google is handling the issue of monikers rather poorly when it comes to Google +.

The list of blocked users is what is now being referred to as the NymWars extends to some fairly influential users. Most embarrassingly for Google, the latest is Blake Ross, co-founder of Firefox, who was inexplicably blocked from the service on Wednesday night. He trumps even William Shatner.

Photo by birgerking on Flickr. Some rights reserved

Blocked users are told. "After reviewing your profile we have determined that the name you provided our community standards violates" \ standards that are used, ensure that anyone with Google + is signed with their real names. It doesn 't take much imagination to work, a few conspiracy theories about why Google should be so insistent on a real-name policy, in addition to some more rational, soft-policy theories on the promotion of a more mature, constructive level of engagement, this reflects how we best communicate in the real world - that is, if we know who we 're talking about.

But online identity is more nuanced than that. Although the roots of pseudonyms may be in the dim, early Web days, may have felt safer in which users have been protecting their identity in the exploration of this new world - and although anonymity certainly has an important role in protection of identities in special cases - Pseudonyms are not necessarily about identity. For many Web users, is a nickname, rather like an online brand, which makes them from the others with the same name, something that her work marks across multiple sites, and something that they associated with their proper name. (See Krishnan Guru Murthy 's post on anonymity and administration of social networks.)

Just who is being banned?

Kirrily "Skud" Robert has been collecting case studies of users with locked accounts. She found that:

• 74% of the 119 reports she collected said they had been using the name that most people knew them by online. 
• 18% used the name they were known only online.
• 13% said they were banned for using the name despite the fact it appears on some form of government-issued ID. (Of particular interest to the conspiracy theorists...)
• Users that had signed up with pen or stage names.
• Reasons for using a pseudonym by the teacher to protect their identity from their school children, rape and stalking victims (a proposal the real name policy is risky, women), concealment religious / political views of their extended family and with a stronger name, is easier to find varied online. In short - a wide range of well-reasoned and "human" explanations for the use of alternative names.

While some users do not want their real names could appear at all, others, like Documentally, it would prefer to allow an additional field for moniker.

"It 'Set Sat private companies and they have the right to their own guidelines. But I have many people behind me and have no idea who they are because they' re not the name I know through them. I have a full circle with the name "who? '. You try to write new Internet law. "

Brand and corporate sites are in planning

+ Google project manager Vic Gundotra has asked a number of Google engineers for users queries on Google + been, and said support multiple users that nickname is added, together with dedicated pages for brands and organizations.

Where some suggestions have been reviewed and implemented overnight, support for alternative names seems to be stalling, while the very strict interpretation of Google's policy is making some very negative ripples – despite an attempt at clarification from senior Googler Bradley Horowitz. He explains that users can add "other names" to their profile, but that's still not as flexible as allowing users to make their "other name" their primary ID on the service. That should surely be the choice of the user?

Risk and growth of goodwill

comScore estimates that only invited guests access Google + has now reached 25 million users in just over a month - are growing faster than Facebook from Twitter.

But of course, Google is faster +, as these services grow, because it is in an established market on the move, where to understand the basic user rate. Facebook and Twitter have to work harder to prove themselves and to the growth. Facebook has "to distribute" users who don 't seem to use real names, but didn' t seem to prioritize until it had a large number of users.

It 's risky to take on Google, what feels like a hard line, for two reasons. First, many users is to be punished now valuable for the use of online monikers, influential early adopters - and Google really they need to be on the side. Secondly, the battle for this space, where, and how Google + themselves by any need to prove a critical mass of people as quickly as possible, can 't afford to lose momentum.

I can 't it up better than Benny crime. His video shows how to do a lot of work Google, Google + to the mainstream ("Google Plus? Is Google better than Google?", But also how fast it is forbidden to have an outsider take badge of cool.

Be banned because I banned from Google + maybe just the new nature of the ranch.