* Posts by bblackmoor

3 publicly visible posts • joined 1 Sep 2011

Google exec: 'Corporations ignore human rights'

bblackmoor

What about Google+?

Remember April 2009, when Google refused to require YouTube users to register their government-sanctioned names at the demand of South Korea, because Google said (correctly) that it was an unacceptable a priori restriction on freedom of expression? I do. A pity that Google seems to have forgotten it.

"Vic" (not his real name) Gundotra says that Google+ will "plan to support pseudonyms in the future". "In the future"? It's a bad policy, it's always been a bad policy -- so what's the hold up? It's a POLICY. There is no technical reason for their anti-user, anti-privacy, anti-social "real" name policy: it can be changed with a memo. Until it does, stay far away from Google+.

"We have a bias in favor of people's right to free expression in everything we do. We are driven by a belief that more information generally means more choice, more freedom and ultimately more power for the individual. We believe that it is important for free expression that people have the right to remain anonymous if they choose." -- Rachel Whetstone, Google Vice President of Global Communications & Public Affairs, April 2009

South Korea is abolishing that requirement, by the way. Apparently, they have decided that it is too great a threat to privacy.

Skype: Microsoft's $8.5 billion identity tool

bblackmoor

Clueless

"fake identities just don't work very well for true social networking"

You could not be more clueless if you tried. Todd Vierling completely eviscerates your comically misinformed point of view: http://blog.duh.org/2011/08/why-google-profiles-or-any-real-name.html

Google+ is an identity service, Schmidt says

bblackmoor

I'll express myself

Schmidt wants users to express themselves. I'll express myself, all right. I'll even be using my "real name". But I wont be doing it on Google+, because Google+ hates their users and doesn't care if they are harassed, fired, or arrested by third-world stormtroopers.