
Dear Googles: G+/YouTube Anschluss – you've done outed me - davidgerard
https://plus.google.com/115668950429167517685/posts/JcPQuXzXTgU
======
fat0wl
I think anonymity on the internet is a great thing. It's a place where you can
socialize and share ideas with strangers without having to give them your
name/address/home phone #. You can even start honest, more controversial
discussions and do some high-level reasoning that you couldn't necessarily
achieve with close friends.

If Google won't allow that on their services anymore, I pray everyone leaves
them & moves to services that understand this. The market giants think they
can bully us into behaving the way they want us to rather than realizing that
they are privileged by having our business. I would recommend giving business
to alternative sites as much as possible to break internet monopolies that are
setting the stage for these forceful policies.

~~~
BEEdwards
The problem is that anonymity leading to great conversation is disproved by
reality.

This move, though short sighted and ill advised, is precisely to combat the
cluster fuck that is YouTube comments powered by anonymity.

I'm not sure what the solution is, but one look at the quality of anonymous
unmodderated comments calls for one.

~~~
jalfresi
Personally I think the problem is the concept of comments in the first place.
You see, way back in the day, if you wanted to respond to a post or whatever
on the web you went to your own website and posted a response and linked to
the source you were responding to. Comments sections on websites are data
islands; comments and conversations held captive in walled gardens. Youtube is
the biggest irony of all as it has the concept of video responses, yet they
prefer you to respond in tiny teeny little comment boxes. I say scrap the
comments section and prove a big red "record a video response" button next to
each video.

Of course I appreciate the irony of my comment about comments appearing on a
site with comments, but I've always regarded sites like hacker news and
slashdot as "forums where the post is a link to an article".

I'd much prefer it if everyone has a wordpress site or equivalent and posted
their opinions on that. At least the web would be more webby and you wouldn't
have greedy centralised sites gobbling up content and demanding control of the
conversation.

~~~
leephillips
"way back in the day, if you wanted to respond to a post or whatever on the
web you went to your own website and posted a response and linked to the
source you were responding to."

Amen. I still do it this way most of the time. Too bad the Web has not
standardized on a form of pingback - that would allow these distributed
conversations to actually work. Right now we're stuck with looking at our
referrer logs, and that is very clumsy.

------
rb2e
Having a Google plus account linked to YouTube with real name policy has not
stopped the trolls and poisonous commenters. They have just carried on as
usual. Now it has just made it easier with spammers, blackhats now able to
leave links on their comments. Sure they can be deleted with an hour or so but
that one hour is all you need to spread your payload.

The only people who the real name policy punishes is the real users. The ones
who do everything right. The ones who do not wish to have their lives outed
this way.

Now I'm gay, and have no problem being out online but at home in public is
another problem. I've never moved from my Childhood home and I live in a small
town, its pretty easy to know who I am, so I made it a policy to never link
the two so I don't have to do deal with Homophobia on my Doorstep. Its a small
town and news soon spreads. I don't have a Google Plus account and am moving
away from Gmail for this reason. I never ever use a real photo online.
Facebook is only used for minor things on an anonymous email address with a
blank photo. Even then I hate it and do not use it for personal stuff.

If you are really concerned about privacy, just delete your Gmail, Google Plus
account. Get your wallet out and move to a paid alternative where you will not
have to worry about having your email connected to a social network. Buy a
domain name, use a private whois service like at NearlyFreeSpeech.Net so you
can move between providers over the years but keep the same address.

If you really must comment on YouTube, create a Google Plus profile on a brand
new Gmail account for those exact purposes. Understand that anything you write
online can be traced back to you. We are not anonymous despite if you never
use a real name. Google knows more about you and your interests than any other
entity and it has years of your surfing and searching habits in its database.

Edited to add, if you hate the comments on your own YouTube videos, just turn
them off.

~~~
alexeisadeski3
Agreed on all points, but I'd just like to add:

Never saw the issue with YouTube comments. Always was much ado about nothing.
So people were immature - it's funny. So people were insulting - grow up,
they're having fun.

This whole movement to control YouTube comments reeks more of management's
personal embarrassment that their customers weren't as serious and high class
as they. Again, grow up. Not everyone is like you - not even your customers.

~~~
rb2e
On a point I agree but not everyone has a thick skin to deal with the constant
abuse some YouTubers face and they shouldn't have to.

But ultimately I believe the whole policy of linking Google Plus account to
YouTube was to clean it up so it looks good for advertisers. They do not want
their brand associated with some of the homophobic, sexist and racist comments
some were posting.

~~~
pmjordan
The thing is, Facebook already proved that hateful people will happily spout
bigotry and threats next to their real name and a photo of themselves. I can't
believe Google isn't aware of this.

------
shittyanalogy
Also, people are different in different situations. People are different on
youtube than they are on tumblr than they are on pinterest than they are on
twitter than they are with their family than they are at the DMV than they are
at a night club than they are ....

People aren't a personality attached to a name they're who they want to be at
any given time and personalities change.

This kind of forced identity is not only dangerous for at risk individuals but
is plainly anti-social and anti-human-behavior.

~~~
dec0dedab0de
This is rather insightful. Now I'm actively considering changes in my
personality based on different social interactions. I wonder if enjoyment of
various activities is contingent upon the personality one puts on while
engaging in them. Which raises the question, what if any parts of our
personality are consistent throughout all activities.

~~~
emmelaich
See also the movie "Zelig" by Woody Allen.

------
batbomb
I've got an especially unique last name as well. So much so that I'm
absolutely sure nobody in the world has my full name, and, as far as I'm
aware, it's possible my dad and I are the only people in the united states
with the same first/last name (of the 7 total on facebook, only 3 are in North
America). My brother and sister are in a similar boat, thanks to unique
spelling of their names. From my last name alone, I'm sure you could track me
down with just that and the information that I've been on hacker news.

Probably because of that, I've always been fairly paranoid about using my
actual name on most things online, but graduating from a college,
participating in research, and having a facebook account pretty much made it
impossible to ever be truly anonymous.

~~~
AndiS
My daughter specifically avoided creating a Facebook account until she went to
university -- however, one of her classes had meetings which were calendared
and discussed on a private FB group, so she had to join in order to
participate in the class.

She used an alias that would be recognizable to her classmates -- but, like
you, she didn't want her legal name to be easily searchable by prospective
employers, health-insurance companies, estranged family members, bad-breakup
exes, etc.

But, yes -- having a unique name makes anonymity and privacy more complex. And
it shouldn't -- it penalizes people for the name they were BORN with, just
because they can't blend into a sea of Bob/Joe/Sue/Tran/Wei names, which are
more common.

The ability to create a persistent pseudonym and to use it for unmuzzled
online discourse is especially vital for people who would be all-too-easy to
track down otherwise . . . but I think that it's still essential in terms of
free-speech and privacy concerns for everyone.

------
FreeKill
Yeah, this issue actually drives me crazy. I liked using Google+ as sort of a
blogging platform, and I constantly linked to a lot of videos from youtube.
(I've never had a youtube account, never posted a comment).

So, the other day, I link to a video I found interesting, and I notice I'm
getting a lot more comments than usual. Problem is, they are all along the
lines of "OMG, Why are idiots continuing to use hash tags" or "WTF man, who
gives a shit about this video"

Just pure vitriol, where before the people who actually followed me on Google+
were at least respectful. As a result, I've basically resigned to not posting
anything from youtube anymore because there is no way to disassociate yourself
with the people who visit youtube.

------
andrewfong
Seems like an opportunity for a browser plugin designed to enforce
pseudonymity. You can already create different pseudonymous identities via
cookie management or different user profiles.[1]

The problem with this approach is that it's inconvenient to keep switching
back and forth. And all it takes is one inadvertent click to irreversibly
associate your two pseudonyms. This is where a plugin could help. Basically,
it just comes with very basic set of rules -- if YouTube, I am X; if Gmail, I
am Y; else I am Z. For bonus points, integrate with Tor.

Anyone know of something like this already? Might be a fun weekend project
otherwise.

[1]
[https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2364824?hl=en](https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2364824?hl=en)

------
ilyanep
I'm honestly surprised they didn't learn their lesson with the whole Buzz
fiasco. Didn't they get sued over basically forced social connections?

~~~
davidgerard
Did they? Details please!

~~~
jyap
Google to Pay $8.5 Million in Buzz Privacy Class Action Settlement

[http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2050437/Google-to-
Pay-8...](http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2050437/Google-to-
Pay-8.5-Million-in-Buzz-Privacy-Class-Action-Settlement)

~~~
vondur
8.5 million is just a rounding error for Google.

~~~
justin66
Well, the canary you put in a coal mine isn't very expensive either, but it
ought to tell you something...

------
adventured
I think Google is choosing a particularly terrible point to start alienating
users of YouTube. It seems like everywhere I go online these days, the YouTube
hatred is universal. It's regarded as uncool, boring, obnoxious, and just
generally yesterday's news. This is merely an observation, however a few years
ago I rarely saw the kind of negative sentiment toward YouTube that is now
very common.

If I were a betting person, I'd say that YouTube's days as the champ of their
segment of the online video world is nearing an end. They'll straggle on with
massive volume, courtesy of the barrier to entry that is the cost of streaming
zillions of petabytes, but their product will be strongly disliked, and
competitors will flourish. I believe users are desperate for a _high quality_
alternative at this point.

I personally don't see that YouTube presents an overwhelming value proposition
any longer, compared to the hassle that it's becoming. As it is now, I use a
separate browser, in incognito mode, to view YouTube because they're scumbags
about trying to force a connection.

~~~
minimaxir
The bandwidth issue is a small obstacle for a potential competitor (solvable
by venture capital) relative to the issue of video copyrights and offensive
content moderation.

~~~
adventured
I definitely agree on the copyrighted content problem.

The VC issue is interesting. It would probably cost... hundreds of millions of
dollars in capital over a few years to compete with YouTube properly
(requiring HD, long length video), given the time it will most likely take to
get up to speed on revenues / build a functioning business model, and the
speed at which adoption often happens these days with successful products
(wake up tomorrow with 50 million users wanting to stream your brains out).

We live in the age of pervasive offensive Internet content. Reddit is half
offensive content, and then there's Tumblr and Snapchat, which thrived
partially due to 'offensive' content. I view that as a trivial problem.

Whatever replaces YouTube, will likely be built on the back of
sensationalistic offensive content. Nothing sells like sex / sex appeal, and
that will never change. Indeed, people get accustomed to it, and then it takes
even more dramatic content to get that sensationalism buzz.

~~~
graue
> _Snapchat, which thrived partially due to 'offensive' content_

Assuming you mean sexting, I think the percentage of sexually explicit images
sent on Snapchat has been wildly exaggerated — by tech journalists looking for
clicks, and by older folks not in Snapchat's target market who don't really
get the point. Snapchat's appeal for everyday, non-sexual use seems to go over
the heads of most tech people I know, but has been described eloquently by,
e.g., Nathan Jurgenson[1] and Dustin Curtis[2].

Porn on Tumblr and sexts on Snapchat make for interesting headlines, but I'd
hesitate to credit either as a major reason for the platform's success without
actual numbers on its prevalence. To my knowledge those numbers don't exist.

1\. [http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/pics-and-it-didnt-
happen/](http://thenewinquiry.com/essays/pics-and-it-didnt-happen/)

2\. [http://dcurt.is/photos-for-communication](http://dcurt.is/photos-for-
communication)

~~~
graue
Just found out some numbers do exist thanks to Survata:
[http://survata.com/blog/is-snapchat-only-used-for-sexting-
we...](http://survata.com/blog/is-snapchat-only-used-for-sexting-we-
asked-5000-people-to-find-out/)

Their conclusion: a smaller percentage of Snapchat users use the service to
sext than text-messaging users.

------
jmillikin
The YouTube/Google+ integration would have been much smoother if it started by
giving every existing user a G+ "Page" identity matching their YouTube name,
and making that page their default YouTube identity. From the user's
perspective there would be no risk of accidentally connecting their legal name
to YouTube, and Google would have achieved their goal of a unified login
system.

~~~
waqf
This. It's too bad Google conflated their technical goal of a unified login
system with their policy goal of whatever-their-policy-goal-is — probably
something to do with knowing more about their users and/or getting them to
interact with social features more.

~~~
tesseractive
Which is pretty funny to me, because this flat-out guarantees that I will not
use their social features. As a currently non-transitioning trans woman, there
are a great many YouTube videos that I enjoy but absolutely can not have
associated with my legal name.

~~~
AndiS
I understand how unsafe and unsettled that must make you feel, and I hope that
you are able to continue enjoying YouTube without endangering and/or outing
yourself. Good luck.

------
JSZZHlmumeUE
What is the frequency with which these prompts to connect show up? I use
youtube daily, G+ not at all and I've only seen them twice. These instances
were at least a few months apart. In both cases, I opted out of connecting my
profiles and nothing has happened since. Are some people getting these prompts
more often? Why? Maybe someone on the G+ team can explain this.

 _without deleting my entire G+ account and profile_

I don't use G+/FB but even if I did, I have a hard time understanding this
mentality. I wouldn't think twice about deleting any of social media profiles
and even in places like HN where it's not possible to delete profiles, I just
throwaway old profiles and start from scratch. Maybe I'm just paranoid but the
last thing I want are my random musings being psychoanalyzed by nutters on the
internet.

And as far as Gmail goes, you should be backing it up offline so that you can
take your data and leave any time you want. This literally takes only 3
minutes to setup if you already use Thunderbird.

~~~
Macha
The prompt used to show up everytime you log in. If you use multiple
computers, an authenticator or multiple accounts, that is quite frequently.

Since YT comments are now G+ comments, I believe it now shows up every time
you try to interact with anything, such as like/favourite/comment etc.

I turned my YT account into a G+ page when the option became available as a
way to get rid of the prompts without using my real name on YT.

~~~
JSZZHlmumeUE
I just liked and commented and nothing happened. I even left the 'post on G+'
checkbox enabled and it still doesn't show up on my G+ profile. I've setup
youtube to use a pseudonym, btw.

------
PythonicAlpha
Google just did not get the point up to this date. They want to press us into
their ad-network, but the way they do is just annoying. I am also planning now
to drop my Google account, because it just does get to much. Every time, I
have to log in, I am asked about telephone number or to "add some little extra
information" \-- I nearly got trapped recently. Just at the second look, I saw
it was not "just some extra information" but they wanted me to sign up for G+.
I will not and I will never. Because privacy is more worth than some candy
they will give to you in return.

Facebook and Google don't care about your privacy, but you should, if you
don't want to be abused in the new world of lost paradise.

------
Lagged2Death
She makes some great points, and I agree completely.

But in a sense, by making the great points, we who enjoy some small degree of
privacy and anonymity on-line have already given up too much ground. We
shouldn't have to make Very Serious Points about sexual harassment or hate
crimes. As if a solution to those (quite real) problems would then make on-
line anonymity moot.

The fact is, I _like_ being pseudonymous on the web, and as it's not a
situation I've been abusing, _that is reason enough_ to allow it to continue
to be possible. That's just the way a free society rolls. Freedom of choice is
(supposedly) one of the core values of the nation that spawned Google in the
first place.

~~~
zwrose
nothing about this situation is causing anonymity to cease to be possible on
the internet. It just makes it more difficult on a single video-sharing site,
one run by a single for-profit company.

Freedom of choice has never before been more relevant. You as an individual in
a free web (which Google advocates for strongly) have the choice to move to
any number of other platforms if you prefer anonymity while sharing/viewing
videos online. If enough people believe in anonymity, traffic and users will
migrate to another site, and Google/YT will become less relevant and/or be
forced to policy backtrack.

Whether you are for or against the new commenting policy, we should all try
not to exaggerate what it means for society at large.

------
jeena
It was about two years ago I closed my G+ account because of that
[https://jeena.net/gplus](https://jeena.net/gplus) and I just had a look at my
G+ account (which I closed) and there are posts that I have been using
hangouts and some YouTube comment too. So I assume it is not possible to
really close a G+ account.

------
lignuist
So what is the next coup? Linking all the comments from the past that you
wrote when you were thinking it was pseudonymous to your real name?

My only recommendation: Get out of such services as fast as possible.

~~~
brigade
At this point, everyone really needs to decide whether _all_ of their usage of
Google services will be linked to their real-life identity, or none whatsoever
(and migrate all usage of Google services linked to their real-life identity
elsewhere)

Maintaining multiple distinct identities through various Google services is
only going to become harder, and with shit like this I wouldn't trust even
completely separate Google logins to maintain distinct identities in the
future.

~~~
josteink
_At this point, everyone really needs to decide whether all of their usage of
Google services will be linked to their real-life identity, or none
whatsoever_

For a while I've lived under the illusion that if you sign out, log out from
Google, you will be less prone to tracking. That was until I had to fool
around with multiple Google accounts for some testing.

When I click "sign out" do you know what the default landing screen is? "Sign
in"!

And do you know what that screen shows you? Every single google account you've
ever logged into. They know who you are. Every single identity you've created.

So yeah. Logging out or using multiple accounts is no protection. They're
still tracking you.

It's like brigade says here: Unless you're all out, you're 100% in as far as
Google is concerned.

~~~
lignuist
Delete Cookies, change IP, probably even switch browsers, block Analytics and
G+ buttons. At least makes it a little harder for them.

------
rryan
Instead of merging with your G+ account you can link it to a G+ page (and use
your YT username or other pseudonym as its name). This is part of the "link
your account" flow. I think this would fix her problem.

~~~
rcthompson
Except that's not the flow they gave her. The flow she got was "surprise,
you're linked!"

------
danso
I think it's time -- Google or elsewhere -- to realize that anytime you post
anything on the Internet, it can and will be used against you by anyone who
dislikes you.

So the strategy is to not make enemies or to not post things that you can
imagine, even in the slightest, being used against you. Not sure which is
easier...

Of course, it's not all or nothing. You should take the minor inconvenience of
using multiple browsers, one for your public name and the one in which you
want to, for some reason, gain a following through participation, a la one of
the Wiggin kids

------
hackaflocka
Google is simply doing the noble thing. It is fucking-up so that it can pave
the way for a better company to dominate. For a while. This is the way of
Silicon Valley. Amirite Vic G.?

------
codezero
I feel like some people who claim they want privacy really don't value their
privacy, but instead value something else (I hypothesize that it's just
control) that seems like privacy.

You can find this poster's name by using Google Image search to link to her
Flickr then from there she has her domain registered with her full name and
address. (this pattern is pretty common, by that, I mean, given some
identifying information, you can find a lot more. Anonymity is only effective
if you practice consistent inconsistency.) A pseudonym here, a handle there,
these are all things that establish permanence and link together to make an
identifiable entity.

Putting your real name into YouTube isn't the problem here. This doesn't mean
there isn't a problem, but it's not quite the problem being stated here.

~~~
AndiS
Thanks for pointing out that security vulnerability -- blessedly, I didn't use
current legal name/address info for the website (I do my best to be cagey
about that stuff online -- that's similar to, but not identical to, my actual
name), but I'll have to look into obscuring the WHOIS information further.
Pisses me off to have to pay for privacy, when that information shouldn't be
public for private individuals who own a domain.

And, yes, I really do value my privacy -- but, since my own knowledge of
trackback information is limited (and Google Image Search is much more recent
than the creation of my personal site), it's less that I don't value my
privacy, and more that I failed to foresee that using the same _profile photo_
(not even name/nym) on more than one site would create a security
vulnerability.

I appreciate the heads-up, but, again, this only emphasizes the issues of
Google (and the issue of requiring personal information to be visible on WHOIS
to anyone other than government agencies) encroaching on personal privacy and
the ability to _compartmentalize_ profiles between different services.

I'm a different person on G+, Flickr, FB, LJ, etc. -- I tailor my posts to the
interest groups that I share in various locations (and my perception of my own
privacy -- I realize that a subpoena would break the security of a friends-
locked post on LJ, but it's at least a relatively private space to share more
personal information, whereas my profile on G+ has been more deliberately
forward-facing, because I was interested in engaging with people _outside_ my
existing trust circle.

Putting my real name into YouTube actually _was_ the problem that sparked my
original post -- but it's symptomatic of a larger issue, the deliberate
contraction of the ability to create persistent pseudonyms and personae that
are consistent within the bounds of a single social network, but aren't
necessarily easily trackable/connectible by a random stranger.

(I will say -- finding this out did decrease my sense of safety, since it's
obvious that my intent to compartmentalize by using different persistent nyms,
and building reputation under each nym, which can vary based on platform, was
insufficient to protect a casual observer from landing on what COULD have been
my actual name and address, had I not deliberately decided to risk the loss of
my domain by putting in information that was designed to trap spammers --
i.e., if I got something addressed to that specific name, I knew that it was
coming from someone who had looked up the WHOIS info.)

------
pradocchia
Maybe Google is trying to do us a favor, and spare us the illusion of
anonymity when true anonymity is dead. That's my most charitable
interpretation. Less charitably, they simply don't care how their policies
happen to burn x% of their user base: "we'll you probably shouldn't be active
online if you can't deal with a few stalkers."

~~~
davidgerard
The latter is literally what they think.

------
bhartzer
One of the great features of the internet is the fact that you can remain
anonymous under a username if you want to. I, personally, have never chosen to
use a username that is not identifiable with me--but I realize there are
people out there that want to (or need to) remain anonymous, especially if
they post content (comments or even other content).

That's one of the great features of the internet itself, and honestly it's a
shame that certain companies like Google wants to force using our real names
on everyone.

It does make sense, though, that if a company such as Google owns multiple
services or sites, they would want users to use the same accounts across
multiple platforms. However, I don't see why you can't use different usernames
or personas across multiple services: just log in using one account, but use
several different public usernames (if you want to do that) across different
sites.

------
smoyer
Why would anyone harass someone who's eating bacon in their profile picture?
On the other hand, I think she nailed the description of the typical (90%) YT
commenter.

~~~
graeme
Assuming your question was serious: Because she displays a very minor amount
of cleavage in the picture, with a pleasant smile.

In other words, her picture is fun and completely unobjectionable.

Unfortunately, if that picture is shown outside of her private context it's
also liable to generate hordes of crude come-ons from lonely men who see it
while browsing Youtube. This is different from a facebook profile picture
because she can't comment without showing it.

If you know any women who use OK Cupid, ask them how many creepy messages they
have to filter through. Or if you truly want to be horrified, make a personals
ad on Craigslist pretending to be a woman. You will get pictures of penises.

~~~
dictum
I understand her discomfort with harassers, but it seems to me that it's a
trade between crude come-ons from people with real names attached and
murder/rape threats from people without their real names attached.

I prefer a web where pseudonyms are allowed, but if anything, real names could
reduce harassment.

~~~
AndiS
What Amagumori said -- I can block/delete harassing comments (and do, on a
regular basis), but I am far more concerned with murder/rape threats from
_people who know where I live_.

I'm a big girl, I can deal with crude come-ons appropriately (which is to say,
snort/fume depending on the content, then report, block, and delete.)

What concerns me is the unwanted linking of _trackable_ personal information,
through a service that had been repeatedly declined by the user in question.

I'm thankful that I am _not_ in compliance with Google's "real-name" policy,
or else I'd potentially have harassers showing up at my door -- and that's a
shitty, uncomfortable, violated feeling to be experiencing, because Google
broke my trust after I told them that I didn't _want_ to share that
information, and they shared it anyway, without giving me a chance to opt out.

In this case, no actual harm was done. However, it illustrates the potential
for harm very clearly -- when you require "real names" (and, in some cases,
enforce that with requests for drivers-license scans, etc., as has happened a
number of times since the G+ nymwars started), you _must_ respect your users'
privacy choices about how they want those names to be shared with the public.

All it takes is one stalker, one violent ex, one deranged family member, and
their real-name policy, combined with the collapse of walls that users set up
for self-protection, is a recipe for preventable tragedy.

------
hayksaakian
At least for now, you CAN delete only your Google Plus stuff without also
removing your Gmail

~~~
dredmorbius
That's fine so long as you trust Google to abide by their word on how they do
or don't link or structure their services.

The point of the G+ article referenced by the OP that I wrote, is that I had
_repeatedly_ responded "no" to the option of linking my (pseudonymous) YouTube
account with my (pseudonymous) G+ account, strictly on the merits that I'd
used the same (pseudonymous) Gmail account to originally register for both.

At the time I'd set each of these services up, they were a freestanding
service. I'd created a Gmail account some years back recognizing that having a
pseudonymous identity would be useful to me. I later created a YouTube account
to be able to access the occasional restricted video. I've occasionally
commented on and/or rated videos, but as those actions became increasingly
public and accessible, I've periodically purged my content there under that
account. And when G+ started up, having first created an account under my real
name, I rapidly decided that I _didn 't_ want an "identity service", deleted
that G+ profile (elements of it remain but I make very little use of them) and
switched to a pseudonymous account as my primary persona on that service.

Now Google have, against my wishes, elected to merge the previously
independent G+ and YouTube accounts. And for the life of me I can't figure out
how to un-do that, or to disable the YouTube account entirely.

I also no longer trust Google to keep separate aspects of my online existence
separate.

------
sidcool
I am a Google fan, but this move by shoving something down everyone's throats
isn't very Google.

~~~
davidgerard
Ever since G+ started, two years ago, it's _totally_ Google. This is who
Google is now.

~~~
sidcool
I agree. And it's not as bad as we are portraying it.

------
MrBra
I am very positive this would be the perfect moment to start a kickstarer
funded youtube clone! Yea, glad I inspired your next big project, thank me
later! (But please don't forget to... I know you won't if you are a good
hacker. I am not in the position to dedicate any time/resources to this
project. Please ask me for some contact info when you are sure you will be
diving into this. Please do it, and... good luck!)

------
spenvo
A comment I left a few weekends ago, which addressed the same topic but before
the Youtube/G+ story broke: [0]

"Hijacking the top comment to talk about a big concern I have. This EFF
article argues that there's a place for Anonymity on the Internet [1], and I
think most of us agree (especially if we emphathize with those in Iran, China,
Syria, and the like).

But what HNers must realize is the following: The mainstream Internet _can not
become_ the Tor-visited Dark-Net (which restores anonymity) that many believe
is inevitable WITHOUT losing its positive sociological impact. Sites like
Reddit, Twitter, even HN rely on anonymity and also provide a great deal of
such value. Here's a simple example of 'sociological impact': CNN (FoxNews,
etc) pays attention to what the top links on Reddit are, because the site is
in the public's face -- and: the people have a collective voice.

Next: Without the perception of anonymity, sites like Reddit will stop
flourishing.

Let's go deeper: Reddit's culture thrives on "anonymity" in the form of
throwaway accounts and people being themselves without representing
themselves. Throwaway accounts (heard of 'Cation Bot' or
'AWildSketchAppeared'?) are a form of expression unique to environments which
allow for anonymity (pseudonyms). Who's to say novelty accounts would be as
risque or hilarious without anonymity? Certainly these sites flourish because
users feel comfortable playing a part and taking a chance.

There are two issues at play which threaten anonymity on Reddit. Now obvious
(in light of Snowden's leaks): 1.) Reddit usernames can, and probably are,
being mapped to peoples' actual identity. ... Not as obvious: 2.) Users' up
and down votes, even private messages, can also be sniffed with ease.

Reddit's' devteam has retreated from the idea of providing HTTPS for its
voting/web API [2], so people's actions (aside from comments) can be mapped as
well. I tried to raise awareness of this issue five months ago [3]. I know
there's an argument to be made that SSL/HTTPS is useless anyway (just use
Tor!, they say), but the bigger question remains:

Can a mainstream community such as Reddit exist in tomorrow's Internet? I'd
say that such web-societies are fragile -- likely targets of dragnet
surveillance and subversion, especially given their disruptive nature.

People and the press are paranoid about Facebook/Google privacy because its
users (are encouraged to) identify themselves _explicitly_ , but the reality
is no different with sites like Reddit - just the perception. Just think about
how much more is shared on a site like Reddit by its members because of their
pseudonyms! Few people aside from the avid Tor-using//r/netsec crowd have
realized this.

Reddit is the internet "as we know it," and I feel the Internet is about to
change.

In hindsight - Google's initial "no pseudonyms" policy for Google+ was
prescient -- though the company eventually capitulated to popular demand for
them. [4] Perhaps they wished to save each of us the unsavory realization that
aliases exist in name-only (pun intended). :/"

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6652909](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6652909)
[1] [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/online-anonymity-
not-o...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/10/online-anonymity-not-only-
trolls-and-political-dissidents) [2]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/l4n6y/reddit_chan...](http://www.reddit.com/r/changelog/comments/l4n6y/reddit_change_log_in_with_ssl_javascript_fixes/)
[3]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1n73s0/again_reddit...](http://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1n73s0/again_reddit_needs_fullsite_https/)
[4] [http://www.ibtimes.com/google-allowing-nicknames-
pseudonyms-...](http://www.ibtimes.com/google-allowing-nicknames-pseudonyms-
aliases-399584)

~~~
SnydenBitchy
It’s interesting that you would hold up reddit as an example of the “positive
sociological impact” of anonymity on the internet, when OP specifically
describes her desire to avoid “sexist, racist, homophobic, sophomoric,
monosyllabic jerks”—precisely the sort of creature that reddit breeds. Though
to be fair, the anonymity may not be to blame for reddit’s culture, seeing as
other internet forums with similar traditions of anonymity have managed to
avoid attracting such unpleasant crowds.

~~~
tehwalrus
But on reddit you can create an account called "fred_jones" or "slwkajbgj"
instead of "Eleanora Rashid-Feldman" and avoid having that behaviour directed
at you like a heat-seeking missile. GP is arguing that the douchebags only
become a significant problem if your diversity[1] status is tagged to your
profile.

[1] Women are the majority, so "minority status" => "diversity status"

~~~
rmc
_Women are the majority_

This is why I use the term "marginalized groups" rather than "minority". Black
people were a majority in apartheid South Africa. But they were marginalized.

~~~
aestra
The term minority has a specific meaning in sociology not the same that it
means in statistics.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majority_(sociology)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majority_\(sociology\))

Rather than a relational "social group", as the term would indicate, the term
refers to a category that is differentiated and defined by the social
majority, that is, those who hold the majority of positions of social power in
a society. The differentiation can be based on one or more observable human
characteristics, including, for example, ethnicity, race, gender, wealth,
health or sexual orientation. Usage of the term is applied to various
situations and civilizations within history, despite its popular mis-
association with a numerical, statistical minority.

Blacks were still the minority in apartheid South Africa, just not the
statistical minority.

~~~
rmc
Yep.

But in spaces like there, where people are unlikely to know things like that,
it can be helpful to use terms like "margalized group" or "oppressed group",
in order to stop a pedantic geek ( :) ) getting into a dictionary definition
argument.

------
smsm42
What I am not getting here is this. I get why people may want to be anonymous.
Google says - no can do, you can not be anonymous with us. We insist on
identifying you. Why keep using Google services and complain instead of using
some other service more respectful of one's privacy? It's not like one cannot
live without commenting on youtube videos.

~~~
themodelplumber
_> >Google says - no can do, you can not be anonymous with us._

Where does Google say that? Is it as direct as you put it, or is it to be
inferred from a constantly changing variety of experiences with Google
services and settings?

~~~
smsm42
It says it by their actions which are not conductive to one's anonymity - real
name policy, etc. It is clear that they goal is for users to have their real-
life identity to be linked to their Google identity. Which may be not what the
user desires - but that just means the product Google is selling is not for
this user.

------
Zoomla
I mostly stopped using my Google account and created a new one with a fake
name... for when I feel like leaving a comment.

------
pirateking
Public and/or anonymous data should be posted to a single global, anonymous,
distributed storage system [1]. All other data should be stored on your
personal system with 700 permissions, and require explicit pull requests from
your system parties interested in using it.

This setup could offer a public, searchable medium that is safe for anonymous
discourse, and includes plausible deniability, as well as a protected personal
space with fine-grained access control. A brightnet/darknet system.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OFFSystem](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OFFSystem)

------
username223
There are plenty of Google bots on this site. Do any of them care to comment?

------
niels_olson
This is fascinating: is the internet not as male as we all thought? Is the
default assumption that it's male and women have wrapped themselves in the
safety of the net's ultimate default setting?

~~~
ubernostrum
So far as I'm aware, at least since the early 2000s or so, women have
contributed the majority of user-created content on the internet. They just
don't visibly do it in the few relatively small echo-chamber places HN readers
are likely to frequent, so HN readers end up assuming that the internet looks
like what they see on HN.

------
isomorphic
Am I the only one who finds it ironic that she's posting her criticisms from
Google+? I'm not trying to be snarky or funny. Does she genuinely value her
Google+ blog or associations or whatever more than the privacy she's so
concerned about?

She can, in fact, delete Google+ and keep Gmail. Try it. I have!

Since Google supposedly runs on data, the only way Google is going to figure
out their problems is if people delete Google+ or stop using it. Otherwise
there's no such thing as bad publicity, especially if you're an advertising
company.

~~~
AndiS
G+ was my public-facing platform, the place where I engaged with people who I
_didn 't_ know (most of my posts are public there.) It's separate from my
normal online identity, deliberately (the people who read my friendslocked
posts in my own space know about my G+ nym and profile, but I chose not to
connect it to my normal nym and other personal information.)

I've found it to be an interesting, valuable, informative way to keep up with
news, to meet people whose social spheres I wouldn't have otherwise
encountered, and to have thoughtful, ongoing conversations. It's a space where
I'm engaged in political, social, and specific-group-related commentary
(gender and sexual minorities, disability-related discussions.)

I knew that, by using G+ publicly, I was giving up a carefully-considered
amount of privacy -- but that was associated with a _single nym_ , not my
larger online identity.

Does Google know who I am? Yeah, sure. What I _didn 't_ want was Joe Public
(or, worse, Joe YouTube) being able to track me cross-platform, which is why I
never associated it with my normal persistent pseudonym or my other spheres of
online activity.

I'm criticizing G+ _from_ G+, because I'd love to see some changes made by
Google. That's the best way I have of reaching an audience that includes
Google employees, and it's also the platform where I've had the most frequent
discussions of online privacy, etc.

Sure, I could try to go in and delete everything I've ever posted, now that
Google has pulled its latest anti-privacy move. What, exactly, would that
accomplish? It's still cached, and as various people will tell you, it's
difficult to _fully_ delete a G+ profile, unless you'd like to give up using
_all_ Google services (and I have yet to find a mail provider who gives me
similar utility for free, or for a low price.)

I didn't mind the targeted ads in Gmail, they were the price I paid for using
the service. What I _do_ mind is the forced merging and integration of
activities and nyms which users had repeatedly requested _not_ be merged (I
declined to merge my YT account _repeatedly_.)

Since I wasn't an active YT user, and I was able to re-link my YT profile to a
dead-end G+ page after the fact, I have not been directly harmed.

But if I'd been someone who was an active YT content provider on a
controversial subject, for example, or if I'd been outed in some way by the
merge, or if I'd actually FOLLOWED Google's real-name policy and used my full
legal name as they had wanted, there was certainly the potential for
substantial harm to be done -- because _that_ allows people to follow me (and
other users) home -- both virtually and physically.

Google's convenience for data-marketing shouldn't outweigh personal safety or
privacy concerns. I'm less distressed by their having the information
_available_ than I am with them _sharing it with the public_ , after
repeatedly declining their "offer" and not being given the option to opt-out.

The existence of a work-around (a dead-end "page") does not mean that the
action was an acceptable one to take in the first place -- and it took a savvy
user advising me of the work-around to cause me to look up how to do it . . .
there wasn't an option for me to do so at the time they merged my accounts,
which would have solved a lot of the related privacy concerns.

------
wrongc0ntinent
Waiting for a follow-up to [http://xkcd.com/202/](http://xkcd.com/202/)

Making this privacy mess funny seems quite the challenge though.

------
eunice
don't think it's totally unreasonable to speculate that plus could become the
'new tab page' in chrome down the line, the way things are going

------
shmerl
This is annoying indeed. I don't have a G+ account at all, and it seems that
Youtube created one for me, though it has no real name in it.

------
davidgerard
Anyone who still works for Google has to think seriously about what they're
getting up in the morning to do every day.

------
rdl
I think it's kind of offensive to refer to a product decision by a website as
Anschluss; both because it implies Google's leadership are the Nazis, and
because it trivializes the actual German/Austrian union (and thus beginning of
WW2).

Marginally more offensive than the "co-prosperity sphere" thing pinboardguy
did.

~~~
AndiS
To be clear, that wasn't my term (it was the title of a link that I reposted),
but I agree with you -- I'd have personally chosen something with less of the
weight of history and atrocity behind it.

------
sdfjkl
It amuses me slightly that I get prompted to log in with my Google account
when clicking the +1 button below this article.

------
throwaway282
Alternatively, why not think of it this way: If you disagree with what's being
done on YouTube, delete your account and move on. Nobody's forcing anyone to
comment or maintain a Google account. If you're going to be there, you play by
their rules. What's the point in bitching about Google's changes in policy
when Google isn't forcing you to use their product and when you can leave when
you want to.

~~~
davidgerard
A lot of the problem is reneging on previous privacy/data segregation
policies. That is an entirely legitimate complaint.

There's also the question of to what extent you can opt out in the modern
world. Got a mobile phone, pretty much essential to work or life these days?
Your life is now beholden to Google or Apple. So "lol just stop using it" is
fatuous.

~~~
ktr100
Well said!

------
mavroprovato
Kind of unrelated question: Do you guys see comments on YouTube videos or it
is just me? I don't see anything.

~~~
ivank
Maybe you're blocking apis.google.com or plus.googleapis.com?

Even more unrelated: NoScript users who allow apis.google.com might want to
add an Adblock Plus 'Ad Blocking Rule' ||apis.google.com/js/plusone.js to
prevent spying via G+ buttons.

~~~
mavroprovato
And now that I checked again, I get them. This is weird... I use AdBlock Plus,
maybe it updated its filters?

Thanks anyway!

~~~
icarusmad
Have you unchecked the "Allow non-intrusive advertising" option in AdBlock
Plus? I think that Google has paid to be added to the list.

------
Kiro
I still see people commenting with their normal YT usernames. How do they do
it?

------
nvr219
The easiest way to solve this is to get rid of your G+ profile.

~~~
geuis
You _cant_. That's the problem. You automatically get that profile by having a
gmail account. They're trying to force you to use that profile for YouTube as
well. Google has these incredibly valuable products and that work great
separately but they're trying to mash everything together.

~~~
abalone
False. You can delete just your G+ profile here:
[https://support.google.com/plus/answer/1044503?hl=en](https://support.google.com/plus/answer/1044503?hl=en)

~~~
fibbery
I wish that were true. I have never enabled Google plus, yet there is a
profile page out there for me. So when I got to plus.google.com I get the "Set
up your account!" page but there is a link for me at
[https://profiles.google.com/[long](https://profiles.google.com/\[long) number
string] that has my full name and gender on it and I can't find any way to
delete that profile.

------
AndiS
OP here -- I am absolutely in favor of persistent pseudonyms associated with a
user-generated reputation system, as discussed here:

[https://plus.google.com/u/0/102524008019896509925/posts/ivyA...](https://plus.google.com/u/0/102524008019896509925/posts/ivyA6FS9XR7?cfem=1)

However, there are significant safety issues associated with requiring people
to use their legal names for online discussions, and I think that it will
seriously muzzle political dissent, social movements which don't currently
enjoy mainstream support, gender and sexual minority group discussions, the
creation of "safe spaces" (which, I realize, are something of an illusion, but
still have value), and vigorous intellectual discourse.

I certainly wouldn't have been comfortable being as politically and socially
outspoken as I am on G+ (a deliberately public-facing persona with a unique
nym for that purpose), if I had been forced to use my full legal name for the
purpose.

Given some of the hate and harassment that has been directed my way (and,
honestly, I've gotten off light compared to many), I absolutely would not feel
safe engaging in some of those discussions if my name, phone number, and
location were easily accessible.

I know that it's difficult to completely compartmentalize between nyms and
platform identities, but I think that the ability to choose which face is
forward, appropriate to the social group that you're engaging with, is an
important part of the human experience.

If you don't want your boss and your grandmother reading your opinions on
politics, social issues, sexuality, etc., then a pseudonym is the obvious
answer -- and I've seen any number of sites (LiveJournal is a particular
favorite) implement granular controls on privacy, in order to establish nym
identity and reputation, while still allowing users to speak to their chosen
audience.

Can you ever be truly private? Probably not. But it's important to be able to
have some form of shield from the casual observer, to have a name and identity
that _you_ choose, rather than having one chosen for you, which may reveal far
more than you intended.

Yes, I post publicly on G+, and sacrifice some level of privacy in doing so --
I do it because I enjoy the level of discourse on that site, and talking with
interesting strangers is part of the fun. On the other hand, I deliberately
didn't link that profile with any of my other online identities . . . and,
while I may not have done a perfect job of it, I at least did my best to
create walls between those personae.

As Dredmorbius said, it's important that users be able to maintain those walls
if they choose, without a service provider choosing to collapse them and merge
those identities without permission. By using their services, I did _not_
consent to that action (in fact, repeatedly refused their attempts to do so),
and if given a choice between leaving the Google-services hive and having my
legal identity attached to everything I've ever written, I'd leave.

What is deceptive and duplicitous about this latest G+/YouTube action, is that
many users who _expressly refused_ the "offer" to merge accounts were merged
without permission, and often those merges revealed personal information that
the users had not chosen to share with YouTube.

I find that _intensely_ disturbing, and I am seriously hoping that some type
of action is taken against Google, as with Buzz, regarding the breach of
private user information.

------
dredmorbius
OP's G+ post was a link to a reshare of mine (a story in itself).

I've just made a far-too-long reply to the "Dear Googles: Stop asking" story
_also_ trending on HN (how'd I get so lucky? No idea, but thanks). I'll try
keeping things shorter here, though recommend reading this as well:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6748332](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6748332)

First: this is fundamentally about respect and trust. Google respecting user's
stated preferences regarding disclosure, and users trusting that Google will
do so. I argue at length above that the first is absent and the second has
been destroyed. This is quite bad for Google's reputation in the long run,
_especially_ as a cloud services company.

I'm finding this ... exceptionally confounding given Google's apparent
strident opposition to NSA and other surveillance (a position of Google's I
unreservedly applaud). As I've argued before, Google with their ever-expanding
and increasingly aggressive personal information aggregation efforts are
carrying the NSA's water. Personal information _can_ be an asset, but it's
also a tremendous liability when misused or mismanaged.

The fact that I've participated in multiple forums (including G+, Hacker News,
Reddit, StackExchange, and elsewhere) pseudonymously over the past several
years should show that it's possible to carry on reasoned discussions as such.
I'd rather intentionally set up this persona to give me both freedom _and_ an
at least partially credible reputation for some discussions. As an experiment
it's worked pretty well.

What happened with the YouTube / G+ integration (Anschluss as I term it) above
is that three Google services I'd independently registered: Gmail, YouTube,
and G+, collapsed the walls between each. I'd set these up beginning in 2008
as I determined I'd want a long-term resident pseudonym and I gradually
started extending it to additional services. When G+ was first beta'd, I'd
initially signed up under my own name, but was quickly convinced by Eric
Schmidt's "identity service" comments and NymWars that this was probably not
the way I wanted to go, so I wiped that account and set up a pseudonymous one
(against G+ TOU at the time). At some point I'd also configured a YouTube
account, using the same Gmail account to register both. My views on video
viewing (as with much else) are that it's a private activity and, even
pseudonymously, I don't share my viewing actions with others unless I fully
consciously intend to do so. Some of us with longer memories recall Supreme
Court nominee Robert Bork and the snooping of his video rental habits, as well
as librarians who resisted FBI attempts to turn up patron's library records.

So I had and intended to retain a wall between the two accounts.

And Google knocked it down.

So I posted about it. And I'm trying to figure out what to do with my G+
account, so when Andi re-shared my post and found that other's couldn't re-
share her (excellent) content, I recommended she _keep_ the re-share (as that
will preserve my own content should I purge it or leave G+), and create a
_new_ post _linking_ to her own re-share. That's ... one of many hoops G+
makes you jump through. All. The. Time.

Not only did Google demolish that wall, against my intent, but there's no
clear way to undo that action. As I mentioned to Yonatan Zunger, this is no
longer about UI/UX, workflows, tools, or technology, it's about trust. And
Google have very clearly demonstrated that they cannot be trusted to maintain
a confidence expressly stated as such.

Trust is a privilege I give once. Never twice.

In my case, the actual damage to my reputation and person is minimal: I don't
exist. There is no Edward Morbius, he's a reference to a 1958 film character
whose abbreviated username looks vaguely interesting. For someone such as Andi
S, it's another story. For some people, this could be career, relationship, or
life-ending. Google's inability to grasp just how wrong what they've done is
... is absolutely unconscionable. I really don't get it.

But even for the ordinary person with nothing to fear who'd tried to do what
an Andi, or Edward Snowden, or Karen Silkwood, or Deep Throat, or Ai Weiwei,
or countless others have done, but _simply wishes to keep different aspects of
their online activities separated_ would find their wishes disrespected.

And that's really low.

It's also not isolated. I won't re-cap my other HN comment here, other than to
note that the lack of respect shown here seems endemic to G+ generally, and
increasingly to Google as a company. Where it once provided useful tools which
made my life easier and richer, it increasingly gets in my way and sets up
traps. This isn't a good sign.

