Google+ is an identity service, Schmidt says
Weed out evil
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Hoping, perhaps, to bring the curtain down on the so-called ‘nym wars’, Google chairman Eric Schmidt has discussed the advertising giant’s identity policies in a Q&A at the MediaGuardian Edinburgh International TV Festival.
Google+, which the outside world thinks of as another social networking service, is in fact something else, Schmidt said: “It essentially provides an identity service with a link around your friends,” he said in a transcript provided here.
Asked about the so-called ‘nym wars’, Schmidt explains Google’s policy (while sidestepping the implementation that prohibits some real names): “But we want people to stand for something, we want people to be willing to express themselves. There are obviously people for which using their real name is not appropriate, and it’s completely optional, and if you’re one of those people don’t do it. Seems obvious.”
Saying that he’s been thinking about identity for 20 years, Schmidt calls it a “hard problem”: “The Internet would be better if we had an accurate notion that you were a real person”, he says.
A real person, Schmidt says, can be held accountable: “we could check them, we could give them things …bill them, you know, we could have credit cards and so forth … there are all sorts of reasons.”
“My general rule,” Schmidt said, “is that people have a lot of free time and … there are people who do really evil and wrong things on the Internet, and it would be useful if we had strong identity so we could weed them out.”
This doesn’t mean “eliminating them”, he says: “if we knew their identity was accurate, we could rank them. Think of them like an identity rank.”
He admits this is a problem in countries with oppressive attitudes to their citizens or their citizens’ communications, but adds that “sensibilities are different”.
“There, there’s no assumption of privacy, everybody assumes the Internet is bugged and that the secret police are after them.” ®
COMMENTS
google+ is dead
rather than quell the problem, he just made it worse, people didn't sign up for G+ because it was an identity service, they signed up because, for example:
a) thought they'd find something better than facebook
b) thought it was a social network
c) invited all their friends and was disappointed because nobody turned up
and yes, even thought it's beta that just makes it worse, annoy them with the nymwars and rather than have an open door to let people replace those who leave due to the nymwars, they cap the number of users. all that is going to do is reduce the number of people in the network.
people didn't sign up for that, did they? they signed up for a social network which might be better than facebook and then the next thing they hear, oh, it's really an identity service, with social network as a "hook" to get people to use it.....hmmm...doesn't sound so great anymore, sounds like you just got trapped like a monkey in a cage...oopsie, that banana doesn't look so tasty anymore now, does it....
yes, I know it's optional, I know I don't HAVE to use it, or HAVE to sign up. But there is an old expression that starts with: one day they came for the journalists, but I was not a journalist, so I did nothing...
each new restriction doesn't sound so bad until you look at the full picture, then you realise just how much you've lost, or how much things have changed. people don't realise that, so it's up to me to tell them, I argued with two technologically inclined friends the same situation just a couple of days ago, I was mouth open at how "I Don't care" they both were....
lastly, do you need to be told I'm a real person? if I act a dick, I'm sure you can hit the block button yourself right? why does my real name matter? people act dicks all the time even with their real name. think for yourself, hit the button yourself, why does it matter my real name....it's easy to do and you actually get to use your brain for once rather than delegate to the almighty google.
Creepiest, evilest shit EVER...
...but at least we heard it from Mr. Creepy himself. Sonofabitch really doesn't get it, and really doesn't care.
One more reason to stay the hell away from Google+ -- as if I needed any more reasons than the fact it's from Google.
Mein Gott
The Google PR division need to gag Schmidt, tie him up and throw him into a sound-proof room.
He has clearly lost the plot / become disconnected from normal people and is doing huge damage to the Google brand.
Plus making himself sound like he wants to be the fuhrer of ze internet doesn't help (Yea, yea, Godwin invoked.)
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