
Google [briefly] suspends Limor Fried's ("Ladyada") Google+ profile - another
http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2011/07/23/google-suspended-limor-fried-ladyada-google-profile-no-show-and-tell-tonight/
======
vaksel
I don't understand why everyone is giving Google a pass by saying they are in
beta.

A link didn't get broken, a photo didn't fail to load...instead an account was
suspended intentionally. That has nothing to do with being a beta, and has
everything to do with Google being a company that spits on its users.

A company that actually cared about their users would just fix the error and
edit the name or simply send a warning...instead Google goes for the kill shot
each and every time.

Crap like this is exactly why people should be wary of putting in the effort
to switch over to Google plus...for all you know you might end up losing
everything a few months later

~~~
pyre
It's possible that while in Beta they are at a point where there are no clear
policies or standard procedures. Or that such things are still very malleable
while they figure things out.

~~~
vaksel
in what world is account suspension for having " " in your username justified?
There should be nothing malleable about that

~~~
pyre

      > There should be nothing malleable about that
    

You're taking what I said to the worse possible extreme. (Personally, I think
that says something about you, but I'll digress on that point)

When I said malleable, I was saying that any standards/procedures currently in
place could be changed to accommodate unforeseen
consequences/fallout/whatever. In this example, a policy of "ban accounts with
names that don't match m/^[a-zA-Z ]+*/" could be loosened when they ban
someone that has a legitimate gripe, and realize the mistaken logic behind
that policy.

You shouldn't be spending so much time railing on them for the banning of an
account so much as how they respond to it. Do they apologize and change
policy? Do they backpedal, blame the account-holder, and leave the policy in
place?

~~~
vaksel
I dunno about you, but you'd have to be pretty clueless about your customers
if you think automatic bans over having " " in your username is a justified
reaction.

As far as judging the response...you can't do that, since the issue was made
public....if the issue went through the proper channels, there'd be a very
high chance of her being told that there is nothing Google can do.

There is such a thing called common sense, and in this case, it was severely
lacking. What other kind of mines are hidden in the terms of service that will
get your account banned over nothing? What other rules will be added later and
applied to all accounts retroactively.

Will you find yourself 4 years from now getting permanently suspended from
Google plus, because in your message history, you used the word "Bing" in a
message to your friend today?

Any other company, you have a good chance of getting a retarded decision
revoked. With Google, you have a better chance of playing a 24 hour marathon
of Russian roulette, than getting an issue resolved through the support
system.

~~~
Matt_Cutts
"You'd have to be pretty clueless about your customers if you think automatic
bans over having " " in your username is a justified reaction."

I posted elsewhere here, but judging from an older copy of the profile in
Bing, the profile used to be for "Adafruit Industries." I'm guessing the
profile was flagged when it wasn't as close to a person's name.

~~~
saurik
Somehow, to me, this just makes it worse. Maybe I'm still misunderstanding the
situation here, but are you saying the timeline was this?

1) user sets up account, "Adafruit Industries"

2) user's account is flagged by someone, unknown to user

3) user is reading online, learns more about the Terms of Service, and finds
out Google is serious that they /must/ use their real name

4) user /changes/ the name of their account to fit the Terms of Service

5) at some undetermined time later than #4, Google decides to act on the now
obsolete flagged data, to punish the user for a minor transgression that they
already unilaterally corrected

Does this really seem like a good way to be treating users? I've now read
enough about Google+ issues that I'm on the verge of closing my Google+
account, and I already have a ton of followers and never had anything but my
real name in the blank (despite the fact that EVERYONE online knows me as
"saurik", and VERY FEW people know me as "Jay Freeman", so arguably "Jay
Freeman" is a fake name and "saurik" is real)... I just can't risk my Google
account getting closed for some frivolous reason: it is just that important to
me.

Also, by the way, this entire notion of putting your real name on a service
whose very premise is about privacy seems ludicrous... I know a ton of
friends, both famous (hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter) and
closeted (barely use a computer), who simply don't like telling random people
online their real name, much less connecting it to a picture of themselves.
Why isn't this circled or something?

"Humorously" enough, I just went now to find MuscleNerd's profile on Twitter
and Google+ to show an example of someone who people /love/ on Google+, /only/
know as MuscleNerd, and obviously are quite famous, and you know what? It
turns out his profile was deleted today... I don't even think he's noticed
yet, and I don't think his insanely large following is going to be very happy
about it.

~~~
saurik
In case anyone actually reads this comment (someone, at least, upvoted it), I
figure I will connect the post I just made on Google+ on this subject to link
through:

[https://plus.google.com/116098411511850876544/posts/4t8sFLLK...](https://plus.google.com/116098411511850876544/posts/4t8sFLLK4hK)

------
Matt_Cutts
I just saw this and passed it on to the right folks in Google+.

Added: Looks like it's back now. The field test is definitely helpful for
finding corner cases that we can improve before rolling out more broadly.

One small thing: If you do the query [site:plus.google.com ladyada] on Bing,
it looks like Bing has an older version of the profile. The title for that
search result is "Adafruit Industries - Google+" So my quick guess is that the
name of "Adafruit Industries" might have been the issue. Either way, I'm glad
that it's solved now.

~~~
logic
Matt, can you suggest a strategy for dealing with Google support issues that
doesn't involve "get Matt Cutt's attention on Hacker News"?

I don't mean any snark with that question, for what it's worth, but I fear
that you don't scale well. :)

~~~
Matt_Cutts
One thing that I love about Google+ is that a bunch of Google employees are
feeling more comfortable interacting with the outside world.

For example, it looks like Amanda Walker from Google stopped by Ladyada's blog
and left a comment just before me with even better advice than I gave:
[http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2011/07/23/google-suspended-
lim...](http://www.adafruit.com/blog/2011/07/23/google-suspended-limor-fried-
ladyada-google-profile-no-show-and-tell-tonight/#comment-22232) . Amanda
pointed to the official way to appeal, and I believe that appeal would have
gone through quickly. So I think the right thing would have happened in not
that much more time.

~~~
vaksel
that actually reinforces his point. If she didn't make that post, Amanda
wouldn't have showed up to give her comment...neither would you.

And that's pretty weak "support", telling someone to go fill out a customer
support form. Especially since it's Google we are talking about here, where
the support is pretty much worthless.

Seriously, I hope you guys have some A/I handling support that's just isn't
working properly yet...because if the support is handled by actual human
beings, you must have an active policy of hiring the lowest common
denominator.

~~~
Matt_Cutts
vaksel, it looks like the profile was flagged when it was something more like
"Adafruit Industries" and less like a person's name. If people want to appeal
a suspension, we have a form to appeal that suspension; the form gets the
right info to the right people to review. If people have a more complex
question or issue, we have forums where people can post.

~~~
vaksel
that's actually the big problem...the account doesn't get judged by the bot
over it's current status...and is instead judged through it's entire
history...that's a problem...since it means people aren't allowed to ever make
a mistake.

this is the same exact reason why my adwords account was permanently suspended
over a campaign that was disabled for more than 6 months(which was approved at
the time I ran it), just because Google decided to change their rules midway
through and apply them retroactively to all campaigns past and present.

~~~
Matt_Cutts
"the account doesn't get judged by the bot over it's current status...and is
instead judged through it's entire history"

I don't believe that's correct in this case. I believe that earlier today the
profile didn't look like it had a real name.

~~~
sixtofour
And what would be wrong with a warning email (even an automated one), rather
than going direct to execution?

~~~
Matt_Cutts
That's an improvement that's scheduled to happen:
[https://plus.google.com/113116318008017777871/posts/VJoZMS8z...](https://plus.google.com/113116318008017777871/posts/VJoZMS8zVqU)
says one of the changes that's coming is "Giving these users a warning and a
chance to correct their name in advance of any suspension."

------
blhack
She's prominent enough that I'm sure they'll reinstate it.

Guys, it's a _beta_ right now. This is why. Part of signing up for G+ at this
time is volunteering to be a bug tester.

She found a bug that where it allowed here to put quotes in her name, even
though she's not supposed to.

~~~
dsr_
The problem is for all the people who are not prominent enough, but get nuked
anyway.

When people get special treatment because they are prominent, have a
reputation, or have a posse, that's a problem. Often the problem is that the
special treatment should not be special, but should be the usual case.

I have at least four friends on G+ with this problem... which makes me suspect
that the name/identity/pseudo problem is not merely a few special cases, but
is in fact widespread.

------
netaddict
The reason for suspension is probably the quotes in her name. A Google
engineer on g+ posted that you should not have any special characters in your
name to avoid getting suspended.

~~~
tshtf
Then why does G+ allow you to have quotes in your name?

This is absurd.

~~~
blhack
>Then why does G+ allow you to have quotes in your name?

Because it's still in beta.

>This is absurd.

No it isn't.

~~~
asdkl234890
Yeah it kind of is. Google has a lot of resources. I still don't know if their
strategy of long running public betas is marketing or a true inability to
start with something much better then a beta version.

If it's marketing this, quotes in your name stuff, is not funny.

If it's a true inability to iterate and scale without a public beta, well they
are not a start-up, it is kind of absurd.

~~~
blhack
They went from a few thousand to _10 Million_ users in about 30 days.

Of _course_ there are going to be little hickups like this. The problem is
already fixed. How is that absurd?

------
taken11
funny that its still in googles cache:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jiwjaQH...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jiwjaQHd7HAJ:https://plus.google.com/108772200278976934119+Limor+%E2%80%9CLadyada%E2%80%9D+Fried&cd=13&hl=en&ct=clnk&source=www.google.com)

------
fds4324
Google+ is bullshit. We want something better than Facebook, but with Buzz and
Google+, Google has shown they have even less respect for user privacy. I'm
deleting my account and (pessimistically) crossing my fingers for Diaspora.

------
spicyj
This article is written to sound like the suspension was due to blantant
sexism, but there doesn't seem to be any reason to believe that. Almost
certainly just a innocent misunderstanding.

~~~
sp332
Sexism? She guessed it might be because of her nickname in quotes, or because
the page talks more about her business than it does about her. But I don't see
any claims of sexism.

