(no subject)

[rainbow]

Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt admits Google+ is Essentially a Trojan Horse (Identity Platform)

G+ was build primarily as an identity service, so fundamentally, it depends on people using their real names if they're going to build future products that leverage that information . . . G+ is completely optional. No one is forcing you to use it. It's obvious for people at risk if they use their real names, they shouldn't use G+ . . . The internet would be better if we knew you were a real person rather than a dog or a fake person. Some people are just evil and we should be able to ID them and rank them downward.

(emphasis mine)

Comments

[auguris]

Wow. I... wow.

[libskrat]

This sort of thing being why I left Facebook, I'm happy to continue being a G+ refusenik.

[azurelunatic]

Nice of him to step up and identify himself, while we're talking about people who are doing evil. By their fruits you shall know them.

[weaverbird]

Nice, if somewhat surprising, to see him being honest about it.

[azurelunatic]

You know, this reminds me of nothing so much as a story my father told me about one of the great ideas he had as a child. He, like many other boys his age, read comic books and such.

"Why don't we just arrest all the men who wear hats like that," he said, pointing at the flat black cap so often drawn on comic book criminals. "Then we wouldn't have any more criminals loose stealing things."

And his parents had to explain to him that the real world isn't actually that easy, and comic book artists just draw low-level bad guys that way because it's a convenient visual shorthand to make a person look sketchy. But since reality wasn't a comic book, people who weren't criminals wore those hats, and not all criminals wore them.

[dragonfly]

Well. That's pretty clear, then.

[finch]

Well, I'm officially at the point where where I can't keep using g+ in good conscience. Time to downgrade!

[ironed_orchid]

Finally, they admit it's about collecting information about people and not about real names being more ethical or leading to better interactions.

[trixieleitz]

The name I use here may not be the name on my credit card, but I still sure as hell can type the numbers into your shopping site >_<