

Google Bans Online Anonymity While Patenting It - neya
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/12/09/18/1839230/google-bans-online-anonymity-while-patenting-it?utm_source=slashdot&utm_medium=facebook

======
webwanderings
Walking on the Internet with your true identity is somewhat similar to wearing
your religion on the sleeves and walking outside of your house. I could never
understand why people do that .... However, just as we don't and shouldn't
live in glass house in the offline world, we shouldn't really be totally non-
anonymous on the Internet. It is as simple as that but apparently there are
way too many people out there on the Internet who do not understand.

~~~
anonymous_cwd
From the URL in your profile, you seem to do both of the mentioned things...

I won't post links here but from the link in your HN profile (<http://web-
wanderings.blogspot.com/>) a Google search and thirty seconds or so of time
reveals a Name, Yahoo account and Twitter handle, the lattermost of which (and
a personal page linked from your Gravatar) both strongly tied to a particular
religion.

Is there all that much to putting up the thin layer that is a pseudonym in the
face of that?

(Hint: This is a new account created using an IP that isn't my own with no
details given - it wouldn't (alone) be enough to hide me from anyone actively
watching from HN's servers, but should stand up to after-the-fact checks...)

~~~
webwanderings
LOL, you made an effort? I'm honored. But you missed the point. Google and
Facebook have naturally and unnaturally coerced people into living a certain
online lifestyle. I wonder if you know the history of Afghanistan's Taliban
rule and their policies towards the Hindu subjects, and how they forced them
to wear a cloth of specific colors so they can be distinguished from the
Muslims?

I am not making parallels but above is an example of unnatural and forced
coercion into applying identities. The other is also unnatural but still a
coercive strategy, perhaps just influential in method.

BTW, based on your assessment of my online identity, did you think I was a
Hindu or a Buddhist? Because I'm neither.

------
udpheaders
"A plurality of personas"

The patent system has become a joke. Only because of how it is being used, and
it's one industry that is driving things to the point of absurdity. There is
no integrity to the system, no matter how well-designed it is in theory, when
they keep accepting nonsense like this. If filing for these was affordable for
anyone, accepting them would have to come to an end. It would not be worth
anyone's time to review.

"Social computing". In other words sending messages over a wire using a
computer. No one was doing that in the late 60's, in the 70's or in the 80's
or even the 90's. This is totally new. Totally fresh. Bleeding edge. Hot. And
patentable!

------
kmfrk
One of the things that really irk me about Google's new name policy is how
friggin' hard it is to delete my old comments.

~~~
thenextcorner
Well, Eric Schmidt once said: "If you have something that you don’t want
anyone to know maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place" or "Every
young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name
on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their
friends’ social media sites.”

Pretty scary if you think about it that the same guy completely banned a CNet
reporter from all Google briefings just because he showed a case of all the
information he could find through Google on Eric Schmidt...

------
olalonde
Honestly, it would be awesome if Google manages to patent anonymity. It would
potentially raise widespread awareness on how absurd the current US patent
system is.

~~~
marcoamorales
Apple patented a rectangle, and I haven't seen much rise in awareness.

~~~
enraged_camel
I swear, every time I read nonsense like this, I want to slap the person who
wrote it.

Apple did _not_ patent the rounded rectangle. Rather, the rounded rectangle
was a small part of what's called their "trade dress", which they successfully
demonstrated Samsung copied. This wouldn't be difficult to understand if you
weren't so busy with trolling.

edit: Yes, go ahead and downvote me for pointing out how stupid you are.

~~~
lotharbot
Just a heads up: it's encouraged to point out when people are wrong, but
you've trounced all over the guidelines [0] to do it. Please reread and follow
the guidelines in the future.

Of particular note:

\- _Be civil._

\- _When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names.
E.g. "That is an idiotic thing to say; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to
"1 + 1 is 2, not 3."_

\- _Resist complaining about being downmodded. It never does any good, and it
makes boring reading._

[0] <http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html>

~~~
enraged_camel
It's funny you mention the guidelines, because they also list this one:

 _Please avoid introducing classic flamewar topics unless you have something
genuinely new to say about them._

~~~
xenophanes
You're right but you also allowed them excuses to complain about you (which is
very hard to avoid) and I don't see what you hope to accomplish. Someone is
wrong on the internet ... so you corrected them and expressed how annoyed you
get when someone is wrong on the internet about this? It's not your problem if
they are wrong.

I think you rightly recognize anti-Apple non-argued insults as being as
uncivil as your own comments. So it's quite unfair you get complained at for
being uncivil while people don't acknowledge the stupid, insulting-to-Apple
comment as already departing from civilized and productive discussion. But
still, you aren't fixing any of this.

If your goal was merely to educated other people who read the comments, I
don't think your comment was well written to accomplish that. It'd be more
effective for educating third parties if it was 100% impersonal and only
talked about the issue in a serious way. I think you were trying to persuade
the guy you replied to, not third parties, but I think you already knew that
wasn't going to work when writing your comment. So there's a bit of a
contradiction there.

------
kenster07
Does anyone fail to see why this would qualify for a patent?

------
droithomme
By patenting it, they can prevent others from implementing it. Patents are
often used to prevent activity.

~~~
gn0s1s
too late.

<http://www.imagn.com/#!/info/about/features>

------
Tipzntrix
Don't be evil, Google!

~~~
ktsmith
There doesn't appear to be anything evil going on here. Google patented a
method for having a primary persona in a social network, a number of other
personas within the network held by the original persona, and being able to
link the secondary personas back to the first for the purpose of mapping
relationships, communications, etc. Seems fairly straightforward and I don't
know of anything like that being in use with any social network though I could
be wrong.

The slashdot posting seems to be little more than flamebait. Google+ is a
privately held social network and Google can choose to require real names on
it if they so wish. The patent deals with persona mappings on a social network
and does not prevent other companies from implementing anonymous
communications on their own social networks. It could prevent mapping that
information in the method described by the patent but that's it.

I really have no idea why this is on HN unless it's posted as an example of
what's wrong with /.

~~~
molmalo
MS is doing the same, by allowing the use of different account names, linked
to the same user. So you can have a username from outlook.com, a username from
hotmail.com, a user from msn.com, all linked to your 'main account' (whatever
it is) and use them as one.

Having pseudonyms is not new. It's basically the same as having aliases for
email accounts. This renders the "invention", something obvious with previous
art. I can't see how this patent application can prevail.

~~~
ktsmith
Outlook.com, hotmail.com and msn.com are not part of a social network which is
a requirement of the patent.

~~~
molmalo
That would require to define Social Network in a way that Microsoft can't say
otherwise, because Microsoft has referred to them as social networks several
times. And of course, they had Windows Live Spaces within their Services,
which was defined as a "blogging and social networking platform".[1] So, the
fact that it wasn't successful doesn't mean that it didn't existed at all.

And they define Social Network as:

"A social network is any type of social structure where the users are
connected by a common feature, for example, Google Plus. The common feature
includes friendship, family, work, an interest, etc. The common features are
provided by one or more social networking systems, such as those included in
the system 100, including explicitly-defined relationships and relationships
implied by social connections with other users, where the relationships are
defined in a social graph 179. The social graph 179 is a mapping of all users
in a social network and how they are related to each other. The social graph
179 is included in the memory 237 that is described below in detail. "

That could describe Windows Live Messenger also:

\- It is a social structure,

\- Where users are connected by a common feature (contact, work, family, etc).

\- It has explicitly-defined relationship between contacts.

\- The common features are provided by one or more social networking systems
(it allows to connect to facebook, and other services, and link contacts from
there).

\- It has a social graph of all users in the network (unlike mail, as somebody
else suggested, but Windows Live Messenger does have this graph).

\- This graph is a mapping of all users in the network and how they are
related.

\- (Read the definitions of memory: basically, memory of an electronic device,
permanent or removable, volatile or static, etc) The graph it's stored in some
kind of computer memory (As they include pretty much everything, including
floppy disks!!!!!!).

\--

The fact that the USPTO granted them the patent, doesn't mean that it can't be
invalidated. And if Google tries to enforce this patent, it most surely will
be invalidated.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Live_Spaces>

~~~
ktsmith
I could agree with your take that Windows Live Messenger, and Windows Live
Spaces fit the description of a social network used in the patent.

> "A social network is any type of social structure where the users are
> connected by a common feature, for example, Google Plus. The common feature
> includes friendship, family, work, an interest, etc. The common features are
> provided by one or more social networking systems, such as those included in
> the system 100, including explicitly-defined relationships and relationships
> implied by social connections with other users, where the relationships are
> defined in a social graph 179. The social graph 179 is a mapping of all
> users in a social network and how they are related to each other. The social
> graph 179 is included in the memory 237 that is described below in detail. "

I would also argue that any competent attorney could argue that the other
three MS services don't fit that description.

~~~
molmalo
But the fact that you can have at least one alias for your account (doesn't
have to be from any other service), invalidates the issue. It's a social
network (according to their definition) AND you can have different
"identities" linked to the same account.

Anyway, this kind of disputes won't be solved in an online forum.

Besides, I don't think that MSFT and Google are willing to battle for this
kind of issues right now. It could trigger a HUGE battle regarding all kind of
assets (OS's, office suits, search engines, etc). Most probably, they would
simply make a some kind of cross-licencing and forget the whole thing.

------
capo
Pseudonymity != anonymity

And I don't think they've 'banned it online', case in point: this community.

~~~
spindritf
Exactly, I completely don't understand those complaints.

> 'There are lots of places where you can be anonymous online,' Betanews' Joe
> Wilcox notes. 'Google+ isn't one of them.' Got it. But if online anonymity
> is so evil, then what's the deal with Google's newly-awarded patent for
> Social Computing Personas for Protecting Identity in Online Social
> Interactions?

Because they didn't say it's "so" evil, they didn't even say it's just evil,
nor did they ban it, they just want you to use your real name on G+. You're
still free to post on 4chan from behind two proxies, to write on reddit and
traverse irc under your pseudonym, even get a random gmail address, or send
encrypted posts to alt.anonymous.messages. Does every community online have to
be the same?

