Steven Levy interviewed Google’s Bradley Horowitz about Google+:
Wired: Some users are chafing at Google’s insistence that they provide real names. Explain the policy against pseudonyms.
Horowitz: Google believes in three modes of usage—anonymous, pseudonymous, and identified, and we have a spectrum of products that use all three. For anonymity, you can go into incognito mode in Chrome and the information associated with using the browser is not retained. Gmail and Blogger are pseudonymous—you can go be captainblackjack@gmail.com. But with products like Google Checkout, you’re doing a financial transaction and you have to use your real name.For now, Google+ falls into that last category. There are great debates going on about this—I saw one comment yesterday that claimed that pseudonyms protect the experience of women in the system. I felt compelled to respond, because I’ve gotten feedback from women who say that the accountability of real names makes them feel much more comfortable in Google+.
Notice that Horowitz did not answer the question, and what he did say was just ridiculous nonsense. Steven Levy at Wired didn’t seem to notice, or care.
Horowitz tries to make us think that we need our real name when making a financial transaction. Thousands of years of currency proves that is not the case.
Horowitz then goes on to blurrily equate making a financial transaction with sharing videos of cats on Google+.
And then the cherry on the top: Google+ protects women.
This was the closest there was to a serious question in the whole interview and Horowitz just laughed out of his arse at it.
I emailed Steven Levy and asked him why, given the opportunity of interviewing Horowitz, he didn’t ask anything close to a serious question. It’s been over a week and I’ve had no response.
TL;DR: Don’t trust Steven Levy to report honestly about Google.
Hi Steven, I hope you're well. I read your article "Inside Google Plus"[1] the other day and I have a couple of questions I hope you'll have time to answer, I was surprised to notice that you didn't ask any questions about privacy - Google+ unequivocally raises numerous serious privacy concerns. Why did you decide not to put any of these questions to Horowitz? Regarding your question about pseudonyms, Horowitz didn't really answer your question. He kind of claimed that financial transactions cannot be anonymous and that Google+ is somehow like a financial transaction. To be frank, his answer seemed just hand waving - why didn't you challenge him on this harder? Best regards, John Leach [1] http://www.wired.com/magazine/2011/09/ff_google_horowitz/
Comments
“Notice that Horowitz did not answer the question, and what he did say was just ridiculous nonsense.”
He did not explain it (well), but there was no ridiculous nonsense in his statement, it made perfect sense. You fail.
OMG how you fail. He also did “try to make us think that we need our real name when making a financial transaction. ” He merely states that you need it for Google Checkout. It’s fact.
You fail even more. He did not “blurrily equate making a financial transaction with sharing videos of cats on Google+.” You did. He merely stated that you need your real name on Google+ (i.e. it falls into the ‘indentified’ mode of usage).
You also failed when writing the journalist, which is probably why he didn’t answer you.
Aside from the hand waiving argument you put forth, your message to him fails in the same way as this post in that your claim that he claims Google+ is somehow like a financial transaction is simply not true. Fail.
You may have triggered him had you yourself provided some examples of privacy concerns (which there are no doubt). “Google+ unequivocally raises numerous serious privacy concerns” is just as much hand waiving. Fail.
Try again: don’t say it’s nonsense because you don’t like, don’t put words into his mouth, just get good arguments about privacy.
Posted anonymously because your blog unequivocally raises numerous serious privacy concerns.
Mike, there are the words that Horowitz uses and there is the meaning he is trying to convey (or the smokescreen he’s trying to conjure). They are not the same thing.
Horowitz clearly tries to suggest that financial transactions *need* a real name:
“you’re doing a financial transaction and you have to use your real name”
Then immediately he puts Google+ in the same category as a financial transaction. You can’t use Google Checkout to share videos of cats. You can’t use Google+ to make financial transactions (yet anyway). And even if you could, there is nothing inherent about a financial transaction that requires your real name – and certainly not having to use it publicaly and exclusively.
And do you seriously believe a senior writer for Wired, who has written a book about Google, would be unaware of the possible privacy problems with Google? Maybe I should have provided some links to explain what a search engine is and some instructions on how to reply to an email too.
The point of my post was not to bring up good arguments about privacy. I wanted to highlight that Wired is not doing a good job of challenging Google – which I’d argue is its job.
I agree completely with your points, and I’m not surprised that people don’t understand the distinction between what was actually said, and what it was intended to communicate. So many people just say (or write) whatever pops into their mind, so they can’t conceive of someone who might put some serious thought into not only the words that they chose, but the words that they didn’t choose and the order in which they chose to say them.