Google+ will allow you to use aliases

The mixed reaction in the blogosphere was caused by the words of Google’s senior vice president for social services, Vic Gundotra, that they would be allowed to use pseudonyms on Google+ social network, and in the next few months “there will be functionality with support for other forms of identification”.



The Foundation for Electronic Frontiers published a winning press release , they say, common sense triumphed, and the anonymity familiar to the Internet was legalized again.



But more skeptical users doubt Google’s good intentions. They rightly point to the apparent half-heartedness of the Google solution. If Google simply allowed the use of pseudonyms, then nothing needs to be improved, but it is enough to announce that the company stops deleting accounts with assumed names. Other options can not be.



Why does the company need several months to develop incomprehensible functionality? This can mean only one thing: the company is developing some new rules for using pseudonyms. What they will be is unknown, but these new rules are unlikely to please the supporters of anonymity on the web.

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“A period of several months indicates the development of a more complex solution, so you can be sure that Google is going to screw it up in some other exciting way,” writes Jamie ( jwz ), a well-known developer from the open source world. “My opinion is that they will still require the indication of the real name during registration, but they will generously allow you to use one or two nicknames.”



According to Zawinski, user identification is necessary in order to sell an audience to advertisers.