
Tell HN: Google Plus doesn't like my name - orp
I just got an email from Google Plus telling me that I'm in violation of their Naming Policy.<p>Apparently, Google thinks my real name (transliterated from Hebrew) is a nickname. That's also the name, by the way, that appears on my passport.<p>I have no idea why Google thinks 'Or' is that odd of a name (I can't imagine that they took exception to my last name).<p>I've been warned that if I don't appeal the decision within 4 days, my Google Plus account will be suspended. Other than pressing an 'appeal' button of Google Plus, I couldn't find any way to provide 'further information', as requested in their email.<p>Comments:
1. Good work scaring your users, Google.
2. Facebook never had a problem with my name. 
3. People at Google really needs to read this : http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/06/17/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-names/
4. On a further note on 3, Part of my day job is writing software for name identification. Trust me, My name is not all that odd.<p>Or<p>Notes:
* Naming policy: http://support.google.com/plus/bin/answer.py?hl=en&#38;answer=1228271<p>* Google email:<p>Hello,<p>After reviewing your profile, it appears that the name you entered does not comply with the Google+ Names Policy. Please log in to Google+ and visit your profile to learn more and take action.<p>The Names Policy requires that you use the name you are commonly referred to in real life in your profile. Nicknames, previous names, and so on should be entered in the Other Names section of the profile. Profiles are limited to individuals; use Google+ Pages for businesses and other entities.<p>If you do not edit your name to comply with our Names policy or appeal with additional information within four days of receiving this message, your profile will be suspended. While suspended, you will not be able to make full use of Google services that require an active profile, such as Google+, Buzz, Reader and Picasa. This will not prevent you from using other Google services, like Gmail.<p>The Google+ team.
======
patio11
Sadly, Goooglers are not unaware of this issue. That's the trouble of problems
with Google: at J. Random Megacorp this would be a stupid oversight. Multiple
Googlers have brought up internally that this policy would result in them
locking accounts of innocent users and _they lost the argument_. You're quite
literally acceptable collateral damage of a core design goal of Google+: for
strategic reasons, they want real identity relationships not "Internet
identities" which may or may not be pseudonyms. They want Facebook names, not
IRC nicks, and they're willing to backstop that with their famous willingness
to use individualized customer service. These decisions were internally
controversial but supported at the highest levels of the company.

~~~
orp
Oh, I realize that. I even agree with their reasoning.

I just don't like the fact that their algorithm is so bad that I came up as a
false positive. Algorithms is the one place you don't expect Google to fail.

I mean, come on, the have thousands of my emails, my geolocation, my facebook
profile is public, and they can't figure out Or is my real name?

~~~
read_wharf
They haven't failed. They have a huge body of identified individuals that they
can sell to advertisers, efficiently and economically harvested.

Oh, they failed at individual user service? What farmer is concerned about an
individual cabbage? It would cost way to much to get down off the truck and
carefully retrieve the few units that rolled off the truck.

There is absolutely no failure here. None.

~~~
babarock
I believe what the OP is saying here is "failure" occurred not on a strategic
corporate level, but on a computer-science-algorithm-geek level. He hasn't
disclose his full name, so we cannot fully judge, but how would you react if
"Joe Smith" came out as a false positive?

Of all the crazy things we're hearing about Google lately, failure on an
algorithmic level may be the last thing we expect.

Then again, maybe the name is indeed more subtle than the OP seems to think...

~~~
read_wharf
And I'm saying that the algorithm is imperfect by design, and accepted as
such, because perfection would cost too much in computing and human resources.

You cannot fail a cabbage.

~~~
monkeypizza
I'm sure cabbage truck designers pay a lot of attention to the cabbage loss
rate... Look how much effort was put into the design of shipping containers.

------
jgrahamc
I see things have improved little since the days when I couldn't have a
Hotmail account with my real name (because "Cumming" is an offensive term) but
I was able to register using the name Ivana Watch-Teenz-Screwing.

PS Went into my archives to check on this and discovered two things:

1\. It was actually Ivana Watch-Teens-Give-Head and here are two screen shots
that date back to April 2003 showing the denial of my real name and the
acceptance of Ivana.

<http://i.imgur.com/2bX2o.png>

<http://i.imgur.com/rO8Jp.png>

2\. In the same period Google used to serve pornographic ads against my name.

<http://i.imgur.com/Z21O3.png>

~~~
hajrice
Just out of curiosity, why did you register under "Ivana Watch-Teenz-Screwing"
?

~~~
prawn
Tests an offensive, obviously fake name, and inclusion of hyphens.

------
dhx
Patrick McKenzie's article mentioned in comment (3) is very important. Most
forms and procedures (paper and digital variants) apply unnecessary and
incorrect restrictions to field values. The mistakes are carried all the way
up into legislation where it is assumed that everyone has a permanent physical
address.

Some other very common mistakes include assumptions that people:

* have a physical address

* have one physical address

* use a mobile phone

* use any sort of telephone

* can access the Internet

* use email

* know their mother's maiden name

* have had a pet at some stage

* attended a school (and other password recovery question options...)

* have an occupation

* have one occupation

* have a credit card

* have a bank account

* have 20:20 vision

* can read English and understand what is expected of them in a form

* know their own date of birth/age

* know their own name

* know their place of birth

* have money to print forms, send letters or make phone calls

And importantly, assumptions are made that people will will agree to provide
information that is _not required_ for the interaction/transaction.

Common sense usability is to _not ask unnecessary questions or collect
unnecessary data_.

~~~
alexchamberlain
You should not assume that these assumptions are indeed assumptions. For
example, banks want you to have a physical address, so they can track you down
for debt.

UK readers... Please remember that students are 1 of the only groups to
officially have 2 permanent addresses. Furthermore, it's illegal to collect
unnecessary information.

~~~
tesimalClanger
In the UK, what would an official permanent address be? Electoral
registration?

~~~
alexchamberlain
Yeah, i think so.

------
etfb
Welcome to Nymwars. There's a reason Google+ has earned itself nothing but
contempt from many quarters. Come back to Facebook; as long as you keep
clicking their ads, they don't care what you call yourself.

~~~
Karma_Police
I've had a friend banned from facebook for using a nickname, instead of a real
name. Facebook may not do it as often, or it may not be as publicized, but
they do also have a real name policy in place.

~~~
aestetix
There's a lot more to it than that. Part of it is that Facebook _does_ have a
"real names" policy, but they don't actually define what a "real name" is, and
they also don't enforce it nearly as recklessly as Google does.

Also, it's important to separate the notion of a "real name" from a legal
(wallet) name. A legal name shows up on government issued ID, and is called
"legal" because it falls within the law of that government.

A "real" name, to me, is a label that can refer to an individual, animal,
place, or thing within a given context. For example, I consider "aestetix"
just as real as any other name, and there are some people who have known me
for over a decade, solely by "aestetix." To them, it's quite a real name.

But consider people who use different names for political reasons, social
reasons, safety reasons, etc. Mark Twain, Voltaire, Richard Bachman (aka
Stephen King), and so on all had very legitimate reasons for using a non legal
name. Imagine you're trying to post updates on Facebook about awful things
your oppressive country is doing to you (think Iran or Syria). Or imagine that
you have a stalker who is trying to hunt you down. The list goes on.

I think it's pretty obvious that none of the major websites have thought this
stuff out very well.

~~~
Cass
I think Facebook has thought this stuff out quite well: When people use real
names on their service, it's easier for family, friends, and college
acquaintances from thirty years ago to find them, thus increasing user
engagement with the site. It also gives them an easy excuse to delete troll
accounts. Furthermore, having people's real names (and often address etc.)
makes them a more attractive target for advertisers. Most of the Facebook
biographers seem to agree that the real-name policy was one of the factors
that helped it win out over MySpace and other social networks. (Among many,
many others, of course.)

In light of how much money this policy is presumably making them, and
considering that they have about a billion customers who seem to accept the
policy as is, I strongly suspect they don't care in the least that the
occasional person with an unusual name falls through the cracks, or that
they're screwing over people who need to remain anonymous for legitimate
safety reasons.

Do I agree with their decision? Not at all. But I think they know exactly what
they're doing.

~~~
aestetix
I disagree with this assessment. People on Facebook tend to use the name by
which they'll be most recognized. If your legal name is William Jones but most
people know you as Bill Jones, you'll probably be on Facebook as Bill Jones. I
don't think there's evidence Facebook has thought it out well, they simply
haven't been nearly as idiot in enforcing it.

One point I want to clarify: I do think Facebook knows what they are doing in
collecting marketing data, in the same way Bank of America knows what they are
doing in holding bank accounts. What they are _not_ doing well is creating an
accurate representation of identity online. If you follow Chris Pool's thesis
("Identity is prismatic"), then nobody is doing this well right now.

------
egypturnash
This is why G+ is dead to me. Most of my friends like to use Funny Names On
The Internet. And are also early adopters who LEAPT on G+ like starving
orphans when it came out, only to find their accounts disabled.

So now the people watching me are mostly... dudes in Egypt who friend anything
cute that comes up for a search of "Egypt+female". Who think a photo of their
penis is an appropriate icon.

I went back to the rotting husk of LJ.

------
willvarfar
Fun tangent for the curious:

Odd is a not-unheard-of name in Norway
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odd_%28name%29>

This can make introductions and hand-shaking with visiting English speakers
amusing:

"Hello, I'm Odd"

~~~
calibwam
Even funnier, Even is another Norwegian name. Meeting two Norwegians, you can
hear "Hello, I'm Odd" "And I'm Even!"

~~~
TeeOff
Even more funnier; there is 30 men in Norway with "Odd Even" as their first
name (<http://www.ssb.no/navn/>)

------
aestetix
Sadly, there's not much hope. I hear it hasn't improved since my case:

[https://plus.google.com/115896012705745653160/posts/Kdg2nPzM...](https://plus.google.com/115896012705745653160/posts/Kdg2nPzMB4M)

~~~
kaens
The exchange you had sounds very much like someone whose entire job is to sit
around all day looking at rather trivial things like whether or not a profile
is using a "real" or "common" name, and then going through a semi-scripted
series of responses, of which 90% of their exchanges with individuals will be
90% the same.

I did some inbound "Tier-1" tech support, and some inbound and outbound call
center work when I was a teen in the middle of nowhere, and similar situations
would happen due to the sheer mind-numbing repetitiveness of the job and large
amounts of really silly "results matter! get a trinket! smile!" managers who
emphasized (due to the nature of the entire thing) quantity over just about
anything else.

I wouldn't be too surprised if that's the case. It's ... one of the most
disappointing things I can think of if it is.

------
nsns
I guess John Doe would work just fine though.

Google is very "Anglo-centric" in many of its products.

~~~
Strallus
That's not really surprising, because Google are an anglo-company.

(As in, the company was born-and-raised in America. Not talking about the
colour of their workforce.)

Most companies work that way, even if they _are_ multi-national. Take Apple's
Siri, for instance. At first, Siri only had support for American English.

~~~
icebraining
Well, considering one of their founders is called Сергей Михайлович Брин and
married Ms. Wojcicki, you'd expect some international sensibility.

------
wyan
For this kind of thing (and others related to permissible content) I decided
to delete my own Google+ account and Google profile. Now I have an old style
account that works with their services (even Reader, although you can't share
or comment any more), but without the big brother cr*p.

------
pm24601
Reminds me a little of xkcd: <http://xkcd.com/488/>

[Use your real or fake name]

    
    
              |                                    |
    
            (fake)                               (Real)
    
              \/                                   \/
    

[You put your content on [You put your content on google+]

your wordpress blog] |

    
    
               \/                                   \/
    
                         [Google G+ flags your account]
    
               |                                    |
    
              \/                                   \/
    

[You create a new fake account] [You spend days desperately trying to get
something back]

    
    
                                                    \/
    
                                              [Google ignores you because you are not well-known.]
    
                                                    \/
    
                                              [You create a new fake account]
    
    

Violet Blue had her account flagged as not being real.

First Name: "Violet" - well my niece is named Violet. Last Name: "Blue" - as
in Allen Blue (Co-founder of LinkedIn: <http://www.linkedin.com/in/ablue> )

This is why I refuse to use Google+ the flowchart only leads to account being
banned. I am moving more and more content off of google systems simply because
Google has this ban policy that puts content at risk.

On the other hand if you don't sign up to Google+ then your content hosted is
less at risk. However, soon I am sure this will not be an option. Try to sign
up for a gmail account now to see what I mean.

------
rwhitman
Well, you are in the unfortunate position of having a name that would be
easily confused for an attempt at SQL injection.

I wonder if folks named "Insert", "And", "Where", "Not" etc would have similar
problems...

------
Random_Person
My name is Chevee.

Google that. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one. I've not been targeted. I don't
know how my name could be any less "common" and yet I am ignored?

This begs the question on how arbitrary this process is. Do you have to have a
certain level of "popularity" before they decide to investigate? Is it just a
bot crawling their DB looking for "uncommon" names?

~~~
skrebbel
Chevee isn't a word. Or is. Google thinks that the guy entered a sentence. Or
something.

~~~
Random_Person
That doesn't seem to be the only conditional check. If you look at aestetix's
response, they confronted him for using a "not common" name. They seem to dig
for names that are not plausible instead of an actual systematic process. What
I'm questioning, is how they define not plausible by whatever name checking
program they are using.

------
md2perpe
In Norway, both Even and Odd are normal names.

~~~
md2perpe
Also, my grandmother has Lick as one of her two surnames, and I've met a
family called Suck (although not pronounced as in English, but with a Swedish
u-sound, similar to oo in book).

------
Shank
The only real routes I can see are:

1) Scan passport & send that to Google 2) Change your name to the Hebrew
variety and set the transliterated name as your primary yet alternate name

There are huge privacy implications for the first route, however, and
@aestetix has a good point in that post about deletion policies and such.

At least they aren't going to kill your Gmail account.

~~~
tripzilch
> There are huge privacy implications for the first route, however

In the Netherlands, when you want to request (removal of) your data as per our
privacy and person registration laws, you need to send a scan of your passport
or ID card as proof of identification to the data-collecting corporation as
well (which makes sense).

Fortunately you can block out and mangle large parts of this scan and they
still have to accept it. It's not waterproof, but:

\- you can block out or blur your photograph

\- same for your social security number and the passport serial number

\- place coloured letters diagonally over the scan stating that "THIS SCAN IS
INTENDED TO PROVE MY REAL NAME TO GORGLE PLUS yyyy-mm-dd" (so that whoever
receives it cannot use the scan for a different purpose)

Source: <https://pim.bof.nl/gebruikers/geef-niet-meer-dan-nodig/> [Dutch]

------
adib
Maybe you can just key-in your name with hebrew characters? That'll teach
them.

------
d4v1dv00
I been through this, how I did was I told Google that I am sensitive to being
found for fraud and phishing, then they allow me to use single letter as my
last name. LoL

~~~
willvarfar
Hmm that could be parsed as you wanting a fake name to embark on fraud and
phishing with ;)

------
mmmooo
Not even that uncommon in their scope:

select count( _) from profiles where first_name='or';

+----------+ | count(_) | +----------+ | 839 | +----------+

(out of dataset of ~40mil g+ users).

~~~
aptwebapps
Do you have access to a database of G+ users or is your post hypothetical?

~~~
mmmooo
"a database", not "the database". it was an actual query result, which for
whatever reason I couldn't get to format in any way readable

------
joeblau
Based on my previous experiences trying to get help from Google, you're pretty
much screwed. Just make your name a fake name.

------
MLMcMillion
Who cares? It's Google Plus.

------
droithomme
It's a racist policy. Common white names are accepted. Certain categories of
"ethnic" (non-white) names are not. We also know it's intentional. Google has
no intention to change. Draw your own conclusions from this. Case closed.

------
LocalMan
Tell them your name is Orville Allegheny Smithers the Fifth.

------
pasbesoin
Hey, Google: Here's one problem with your "social" program. Your support is
anything but.

Seriously. Stop and think about that, for a minute.

------
tonfa
I don't understand, why are you not appealing?

~~~
krig
> I've been warned that if I don't appeal the decision within 4 days, my
> Google Plus account will be suspended. Other than pressing an 'appeal'
> button of Google Plus, I couldn't find any way to provide 'further
> information', as requested in their email.

He did appeal. There's no clear way to provide additional information, making
the hopes of actually getting any results from an appeal slim.

Either way, the appeal process is tangential to the problem of google
requiring "real names" as if such things actually exist.

------
ktizo
Given that aliases are legal and not in and of themselves considered
fraudulent in most of the world, the requirement to use a 'real name' for
online services seems to have no real legal basis anyway.

~~~
read_wharf
It's a private, voluntary, non-essential service. They can do what they want,
short of protected class discrimination.

~~~
ktizo
They can do what they want within the law, and there is AFAIK a common law
right to use aliases.

In other words, your name is what you agree to go by.

Also, you are not contractually bound by anyone to go by your given name, as
you were not old enough to contractually agree to it when your name was given.

~~~
read_wharf
And they can allow or disallow anyone they want. It's their business.

~~~
ktizo
Yes, but if they give you a contract that says that you have to provide them
with your birth name to use their service, then that part of the contract just
doesn't count either way in those territories where it has no legal basis.

So in that situation, if you give an alias and you click agree to their
contract, you would still not be in breach of contract.

They can always remove your account anyway of course.

