Feedly Forces Its Users To Create Google+ Profiles 251
somegeekynick writes "Feedly users, a lot of whom migrated from the now-defunct Google Reader, are now finding out that they will not be able to login to the service without a Google+ Profile. In a blog post from Edwin Khodabakchian, which was posted almost at the same time the change rolled out, the reason for the change is stated as following Google's own move from using OAuth to Google+ for authentication. What has riled up a lot of users, as can be read in the comments, is that this change has come without warning and a lot of feeds are now being 'held hostage' by Feedly, especially for users who are reluctant to create Google+ Profiles."
Roll your own authentication guys (Score:5, Insightful)
We also understand that some people would prefer to have more identity choices. So we have been testing twitter, facebook and wordpress login options. We will be rolling them out over the next 7 weeks.
Apparently they are too busy looking for other ways to force you to have 3rd party accounts to realize the obvious solution and roll their own authentication system.
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Programming is hard. Let's go shopping. [codinghorror.com]
There are two sides to this of course. Reinventing the wheel is bad. Outsourcing rifle production to your enemies is bad. There are a lot of things in between those two extremes.
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As a user, what benefit would them having their own authentication system give me? I've already got a Google account. I've already got a Twitter account. I've already got a Facebook account. If they provide those options, that's one less moving part for me to manage. If they create their own authentication system instead, I've got yet another thing to set up.
Even if we assume that prospective users have none of the above, they've still got to set up an account somewhere. Why should they authenticat
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It's not inevitable. When I added a feed in the old Google Reader it didn't tell anybody I was doing it. Just because Google has Google Plus, it doesn't automatically translate that each and every action you take while authenticated must necessarily be shared. Even if you assume that is the case, the whole reason why the Circles feature is designed the way it is is because Google
Re:NEVER roll your own authentication. (Score:5, Insightful)
Were you going for a "funny" tag with this? Are you a software developer? You know that OpenSSH isn't a program for website user authentication, right?
Re:NEVER roll your own authentication. (Score:5, Informative)
Software developer should NEVER try to roll their own authentication, just like they shouldn't try to roll their own encryption.
Security is the domain of PROFESSIONALS and EXPERTS only. Your average softdev should NEVER EVER EVER try to roll their own authentication.
It's better to use existing software written by PROFESSIONALS and EXPERTS. Like OpenSSH. That's what everybody should use for authentication.
Wow. How wrong could this be? Let me count the ways...
Nah. I have better things to do. I'll just say that a "real" developer uses tools developed by others to "roll their own" authentication. Nobody said you should to invent your own hashing algorithm or anything. Just follow recommended practices, use a known-to-be decent hash method, and be sure to salt.
It ain't rocket science.
Re:NEVER roll your own authentication. (Score:4, Insightful)
Answers.com isn't getting any answers from me (Score:4, Insightful)
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Funny, neither do I - So why would I use your code (for some non-literal value of "you") instead of my own?
Only half kidding here. Yes, I understand why we should generally avoid rolling our own unless necessary. But don't assume that just because someone else has written it already - Possibly someone far, far less experienced and less knowledgeable about security best practices - That you'll end up with a better result with something off the
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A tool by others, like facebook or google login? Or maybe you meant a middle ground between reuse nothing vs. reuse everything?
I read the comment as not baking the pie from scratch when a good flour is on the grocery shelves. And if you grow your own wheat, you deserve the inevitable problems.
Let's have some balance and reason, I don't ask for anything unreasonable.
Re:NEVER roll your own authentication. (Score:4, Informative)
Software developer should NEVER try to roll their own authentication, just like they shouldn't try to roll their own encryption.
No. Authentication is far easier to understand. Proof of knowledge is simple to perform, and is new authentication protocols can be built from the cryptographic primitives with ease. I'm certain you have no knowledge in this area, if you had some experience creating authentication systems you would know the same advice for ciphers does not apply to authentication. It's true
Furthemore, today we lack a widely adopted authentication standard that provides revocation, and optional anonymity. There current major competing authentication standards are all laughable due to their reliance on the broken SSL trust graph. Firefox - settings - Advanced - Certificates - View Certificates - Hong Kong Post & CNNIC. These are root certificates that can be used by the Chineese government to create a "valid" cert for Google.com or Yourbank.com without those domain's permission. Together with an unsigned DNS root infrastructure the entire security system of the web is completely and utterly a security theater. Your route passes through there servers and you've still got a big green bar saying yourbank.com is secure when you've been MITM'd by the Chinese, Russians, Iran, Turkey, etc. Folks we are actively at "cyber war" with. I say this to illustrate the FACT: You MUST write your own authentication system, because EVERYONE ELSE who we thought COULD be trusted SHOULD NOT BE TRUSTED; They're all worse than morons, they've PURPOSEFULLY built a fucked up system.
HTTP AUTH already exists and is supported in every web browser. Since it asks for authentication before displaying any content it is the right direction (unlike EVERY OTHER AUTHENTICATION). However HTTP-AUTH is clunky and most redardedly HTTP and TLS do not know about each other so the nonce you send as proof of knowledge in the clear which could instead be used to key your TLS/SSL stream cipher DOES NOT do so.
All the well used existing authentication standards are fucking jokes. OAuth? Don't make me laugh: It's the best way to phish passwords EVER! Just make, say, a google or facebook login logo and have it redirect to a page that is not google or facebook to collect their password. Sure 2 factor exists, but it's not commonly used and even it has gaping huge holes.
So, what we need are PRE-REQUEST authentication systems. A browser plugin that detects you're about to visit a secured site (perhaps from its database of prior authentications) then it pops up the browser password dialog NOT ON THE PAGE and perform the secure handshake providing proof of knowledge of a key and another nonce to hash with you password [or HMAC(domain, pw) ] to generate a session cipher key and then immediately begin send encrypted data back and forth without any PKI bullshit needed at all since the endpoints already have a pre-shared secret with which to generate a session secret. The ONLY time you need Public Key crypto is when you register an account and establish the pre-shared key. That window is so small, and impractical since the shared key is not useful unless a permanently maintained MITM attack is performed on every connection attempt that it makes PKI hierarchy essentially moot (esp: considering that PKI is useless due to aforementioned explicit trust of enemy actors as roots).
Your advice to not create your own authentication system is the absolute WORSE advice you can possibly give since ALL prominent authentication standards are complete and utter rubbish. You at least have a CHANCE of creating something more secure than the blatant SECURITY THEATER that is everything else.
To be perfectly clear, this is infinitely better than everything else: Browser plugin asks for master password; For any domain, Domain GUID = HMAC( userID, domain ), HMAC( HMAC( Master PW + Salt ), domain + nonce ) = session cipher key; Send Domain GUID, nonce, and your encrypted data to the server.
Pump up the numbers (Score:3, Insightful)
Well thats one way to keep pumping up the Google+ numbers with more inactive accounts.
Re:Pump up the numbers (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, first, you missed the bit about it being retracted.
But besides that, Feedly has nothing to gain by pumping up Google+. (Unless there is some money changing hands under the table).
Google is out of the feed reader business, so all you really need is an account at Feedly. They would like to pawn off the
authentication server stuff onto someone else. But they are just serving up news feeds. There is really no reason to
have any account details at all on hand, and they could just hand out random numbers for accounts.
The problem here is that Feedly is finding it just as hard to monetize RSS as Google did, because, quite frankly, RSS was never
intended to be monetized. It was intended to bring you to feeder's web site.
But once you have things like Feedly and before that Google Reader scraping the full stories linked to the feeds, it becomes unprofitable
for feedly, and unprofitable for the Feed sites, because nobody visits the sites anymore.
I read a couple dozen feeds. On some feeds I never visit the site. On others, I have my reader (not feedly) set up to automatically go to
the site, scrape the page via Google Mobilizer and show me just the text. No pictures, adds or any of that.
The upside, those things aren't fetched from the site, saving them bandwidth. The downside, the site makes no money from me.
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I would think targeted ads would be a nice juicy way to monetize it. You not only know what topics a person is interested in, but even what specific articles. I can't think of a better way to determine a users interests. It still amazes me that Google dropped it,
Not a Story (Score:5, Interesting)
From TFA:
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Re:Not a Story (Score:4, Insightful)
From TFA:
Nothing to see here. Move along.
Until they try to figure out another way to force this on people.
Google's ultimate goal is simple. You can't just use only Gmail or only Youtube or whatever. If you want to use one service, you have to use them all.
Re: Not a Story (Score:2)
Frankly the YouTube move is nothing but good for content producers who actually want to make money and be taken seriously... Let alone build a functioning community for their product.
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If you're talking about forcing YouTube commenters to use Google+, then lol. YouTube comments sucked, but at least they were generally well-threaded suck (when YouTube itself was displaying them properly and not shuffling the comments in its own...special ways).
When I peek at the newly Plus-ified comment sections...oh god. Hashtags. Mere retweets. No cohesive threading at all. No change in the level of anecdotal GIFT proofs (because [a] anonymity is not the true problem and [b] Real Name harassment onl
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You can still use each service under a different account, although it would be a pain in the ass. Having the stuff integrated is actually convenient for many people.
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Wait, let me get this straight. Logging in with Google using the old mechanism is fine. Logging in with Google using Google+ is bad. I've always thought that the outrage is about giving your data to Google, but that's not the case here? Basically, it's just "Everything Google does is great, but strap a non-alphanumeric character to the name, and it's the spawn of Satan"?
All your accounts are belong to us. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm f***ing sick of Google and their integration of Google+ into Youtube (and obviously their other, and 3rd party services). I don't like Google+. I like Youtube (less and less these days, however). I don't use GMail, or any other Google service (besides search when DuckDuckGo doesn't find me what I want). It's like they're trying to force-feed us their horrible social network via proxy (no pun intended). NO I DO NOT WANT TO POST MY YOUTUBE COMMENTS ON MY DESOLATE GOOGLE+ ACCOUNT. Just keep them separate, they were never meant to be tied together.
Re:All your accounts are belong to us. (Score:4, Interesting)
If geeks had 1% of the organisational skill of a bunch of illiterate factory workers at the beginning of the 20th century, stuff like this - and almost all of our First World problems - would be trivial to deal with.
For this one, my suggestion would be for everyone nagged to create a G+ page to fill their page with dildos and friend only Google executives. Use competitor Facebook to spread the word. Once a few million people have done this, G+ becomes a joke.
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That only works if you actually like their competitor. If you don't, then you see that Google is mostly copying their competitor, who has been promoting using their system for 3rd party forums for quite a while now. Many places have stopped taking comments without a Facebook account.
Why do you think Facebook, well known for shitting on people's privacy settings, is any better than Google?
Re:All your accounts are belong to us. (Score:5, Insightful)
"Privacy settings" is a marketing term..
There is NO such thing as privacy online. Posting something online is equivalent to posting it to the world - it's like keeping a secret by telling someone. And if you're not going to tell anyone, why post it online?
The only reason why "privacy" is an option is because Facebook and everyone else knows that people won't post anything otherwise. So they invent "privacy settings" to trick (yes, trick) everyone into revealing things that they rationally won't.
The old adage (from decades ago) goes "never put online anything you don't want to read in the New York Times". Or I guess, the Google front page these days.
Nothing's changed, just Facebook has managed to sucker in a bunch of gullible people into thinking there's any semblance of privacy online. And that doesn't even cover the need to monetize your information. Just putting it online is dangerous enough.
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That would be seriously awesome.
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Well, the big difference is that geeks (at least those paid to work as geeks, and by that I don't count first/second level tech support drones) are on a pretty good wicket (i.e. easily the top 20-30% of wages).
Also, er, these 'first world problems' are a lot less serious than working conditions in the industrial revolution....
not surprising that most people (even geeks) don't give a rats
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...fill their page with dildos and friend only Google executives....
Wish I could get away with doing something like this at work. Some HR genius has commissioned a Corporate Social Network, and while they apparently can't order you to join up, they seem to have licence to nag you about it ad infinitum.
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G+ has always seemed too irrelevant to elicit any feelings at all in me.
Now they've gone full Microsoft with their force feeding, I actually spent 15 minutes trying to get to grips with G+.
Just.
Awful.
It almost makes me appreciate the Facebook UI team.
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It helps to provide real examples of why a single sign on is not wanted.
For me, I don't want the NSA using my compromised info to log into any of my other accounts. A break one breaks all policy is an Identity Theif's goldmine. Google +, Facebook, Bank of America, Bank of Nova Scotia, E-Trade, Ebay, Amazon..... There is a reason not all my eggs are in one basket.
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That still doesn't explain the outrage over YouTube - Gmail - G+ integration. All the accounts are with Google, and they know everything from all three services. So does NSA. And don't think thay can't identify if you log to their different services with different accounts but with the same IP address.
Re:All your accounts are belong to us. (Score:5, Informative)
Try this:
https://www.startpage.com/ [startpage.com]
It uses google, but even google don't know who you are when you go through these guys :)
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I couldn't get to the whois information of www.startpage.com. Could you?
Funny enough, whois doesn't report any info on nsa.gov, either.
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I saw this video earlier today. It seems strangely appropriate.
Dear Google... [youtube.com]
I have to say, I sort of agree. I barely use Google services so it doesn't effect me too much but they do seem to be pushing their Google+ product pretty heavily, and even I find it a bit annoying. I don't know if it's really popular or not (I have no interest in it); I just wish they wouldn't try to shove it in my face so much.
And btw Google, Ablehard Franklestein Snortheimer III /is/ my real name; who are you to say it isn't?
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No need to use a Google account to interact with Youtube that isn't a throwaway in the first place.
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I am too. I noticed recently youtube has a picture it scraped up from a google+ account I never consented to be made, never told it to use, and really it's a mystery where it came from or who it is. But it's now me, and I cant get rid of it. Might just delete my youtube account as a result.
Google used to be useful but lately it's about the creepiest thing on the web (for me, at least, since I can and do avoid facebook entirely.)
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I am too. I noticed recently youtube has a picture it scraped up from a google+ account I never consented to be made, never told it to use, and really it's a mystery where it came from or who it is. But it's now me, and I cant get rid of it. Might just delete my youtube account as a result.
It's not a photo of you? And you can't delete it? How can you not get rid of it? That sounds like a bug. If you want to send me details, I'll look into it a bit and file a bug report.
It would also be a good idea if you used the "send feedback" link on one of the relevant pages. You won't get any response, generally, but those feedback submissions do get a lot of attention.
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You're right. I deleted my Google+ account, and consequently took down my YouTube "channel". I had one vid with 80,000 views, and some 50,000 more in a few others, but who gives a damn? I am sick and tired of all the greedy bastards that cannot take no for an answer.
Let them leech on the unwashed like the a 19th century industrial tycoon.
Google accounts predate Google+ profiles (Score:3)
Google+ is the account system for Google.
Google accounts were around years before Google+ profiles. Even if someone has a Google account, that doesn't mean he wants to create a public Google+ profile with his legal name.
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You can leave the profile empty, and enter a false name.
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Because it's redundant and unnecessary and has negative privacy implications? Because I want to at least *feel* like I have SOME sort of control over what I do online and where my personal effects end up? I know, I know, it's a lost cause I guess.
Re:All your accounts are belong to us. (Score:5, Informative)
Because I want to at least *feel* like I have SOME sort of control over what I do online and where my personal effects end up?
Then you should like the G+/YouTube integration because now you can make YouTube comments that are not public. Pick the people/circles you want to share your comment with and only those people will be able to see your comment on the video. Yes, for this to work they have to have Google+ accounts, too, or they will be part of "the public" and be unable to see what you wrote.
I'm not sure if the video owner can see comments that are shared privately. I suspect not.
Anyway, if it's control you're looking for, this change gives you control that you didn't previously have.
(Disclaimer: I'm a Google engineer, but I don't work on YouTube or Google+. My only real knowledge of them is as a (satisfied) user.)
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The alternative is giving everything to the most powerful internet based company outside of your isp?
No thanks. I have to have both, as do my audience, so it is still the forced social integration as the original complaint.
I want to be able to communicate with the original content creators of YouTube with no integration of Google+
Oh, because I use different email addresses with different devices and ghostery and roadblock and conscript and different browsers I can, but most people are not insane.
Also, I can
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Google has slowly turned really fucking evil.
Your definition of "evil" is... interesting.
They automatically keep you logged in so they can keep track of anything you search for
Only if you want them to. Use the keep-my-opt-outs plugins they provide, or turn on the do-not-track setting in your browser and they won't track you.
Personally, I go the other direction. I have web history turned on so Google keeps a complete history of all of my web activity. When I want to find that URL I was looking at last night (at home, from a different computer), I can just search my history and there it is. That's just one example, but I find having my
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Just did the same. Let 'm rot in hell.
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When did you ever have to pay for YouTube? Or GMail, for that matter?
The Frog In Boiling water... (Score:2)
If you have an android phone/a youtube account/ or a gmail address you have a g+ account.
Google account != Google+ profile (Score:4, Informative)
Use Google to search for an alternative you can use on your Android phone
So what handheld computer should I use if I want to write my own software but don't want Google
If you have an android phone/a youtube account/ or a gmail address you have a g+ account.
No, you have a Google account. Google is requiring certain users who already have a Google account to add a Google+ profile to their Google account and associate all activity on their Google account with their Google+ profile.
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So what handheld computer should I use if I want to write my own software but don't want Google
An iOS device, a Windows phone/tablet or any of the Android phones on this list [linuxonandroid.org].
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Use an Android phone running CyanogenMod or any of the AOSP variants. even off the shelf standard Android does not require you to have a Google account. Install software from Amazon, F-Droid, or develop your own. Android is not hard-tied to Google. They seem to want an open internet so they can show ads to people without fighting against a series of closed walled gardens.
OAuth and cross-site SSO (Score:2)
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Find a better Google Reader replacement... (Score:4, Informative)
Feedly's login policy was what forced me to use Inoreader (www.inoreader.com), the only reader I was aware of that provided a standalone login. And boy am I happier for it. Light, fast and simple yet also feature rich. Just like the Google reader I used to know and love....
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set up Tiny-Tiny RSS [tt-rss.org] on your own home server
And lose home Internet for 12 months if discovered.
Their official party line is that they don't support shared hosting
I don't see how that's sustainable with the IPv4 address shortage. I was under the impression that each VPS needed its own IP address, and servers on an IPv6 network still need to be accessible by clients stuck on IPv4-only ISPs.
Could be worse (Score:2)
tt-rss is highly recommended (Score:5, Informative)
I highly recommend setting up the free tt-rss service [tt-rss.org]. There's also a nice mobile client.
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We need a new standard. Free as in beer, free as in open source, or free as in privacy?
Or maybe Software as a Service vs. Software as a Business Model?
Forget "Feedly" (Score:2)
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Youtube is now impossible to use... The comments sections have been rendered useless - or about as useless as a wet blanket.
Were they ever useful? Youtube comments make slashdot ACs look like perfect gentlemen, upright and true.
.
Feedly's more annoying for other reasons (Score:2)
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yes how dare they try to monetise, they should give you everything for free forever
rs (Score:2, Informative)
The main Google Reader replacement.
Re:rs (Score:5, Informative)
The main, crappy replacement. The real replacement is Newsblur.
Re:What the fuck is a "Feedly"? (Score:5, Informative)
More importantly, this is a non-news story since they have since rolled back those changes.
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Death by a thousand cuts. They'll do it again. This is all part of an apparently huge push to force g+ on people.
Gmail recently started requiring access to plus.google.com in order to login. Some of us block access to social networks.You must now regularly few (sometimes more than once a week) a g+ nag screen.
I am migrating my dozen+ accounts from gmail. Thanks for the push, google!
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" I imagine the crackhead thinks the idea of life without crack is absurd, an unrealistic pipe dream."
Or an unrealistic pipeless dream, as the case may be.
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Just use PolarisMail like me. 25 GB of space for $25 a year. It's the best deal I've found on the Internet, and George (the owner) is a top-notch developer and very helpful, too.
https://www.polarismail.com/Enhanced-E-mail-hosting-service/ [polarismail.com]
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I just don't understand all of these companies with names that take some word and stick 'ly' at the end.
It's simple -- they are the companion websites to all those "-ster" websites everywhere.
I wonder what Feedster is doing!
WHOIS feedster.com
Registration Service Provider: Dotster.com, support@dotster-inc.com
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Damn plebes jumping on the bandwagon.
I was into hipster.com way before this "-ster" trend.
Re:What is the issue with creating a Google+ accou (Score:5, Informative)
What is the issue with creating a Google+ account?
The issue is that using "John Doe" as your name when it is not your name is in violation of their Names Policy [google.com], you are subject to having the account suspended or canceled. [google.com]
This is so much bullshit on so many levels. Using a real-life and permanent name in conjunction with social networking activity is, in my opinion, extremely stupid. Making this a requirement for participation is frightening.
G+ has taken some steps in the right direction [eff.org], but IMO this has been more talk and less action than is necessary and their behavior with forcing G+ membership for Google store/youtube comments is abhorant.
Preserving anonymity, pseudonyms, and online identity separate from 'real life", insofar as is possible, is essential to a healthy Internet.
AC
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"The issue is that using "John Doe" as your name when it is not your name is in violation of their Names Policy [google.com], you are subject to having the account suspended or canceled. "
I solve that as I solve many things, by not giving a shit. It's the Internet FFS!
Providers of free services need not care about their customers, and their customers have no moral imperative to care about their rules. Fuck Google's "rules" with George Carlin's proverbial big rubber dick! If they become too cumbersome to con
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I remember when some BBSes would require a real name only (no handles allowed). Those were usually creepy, Christian only or honeypot boards.
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Last time I tried, I can't have an account under the only name I really care about ("seebs"). In theory they allow nyms, but in practice, I've never heard of anyone being able to get them to do this unless they're famous. Heck, I haven't even heard of anyone being able to get a non-form-letter response, or an opportunity to so much as write a single sentence in defense of their desire to be allowed to use a particular name.
So I do have a G+ account with a name they accept. It's not my name, but they've said
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Can't you just create a Goole+ Page instead? The things that organizations, companies, or clubs use? Then you don't need to use name that sounds like a person.
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I stayed away from G+until recently for the same reason... Online I've gone by a few different handles, one of which matches the nickname I've gone by IRL since I was 10 years old -- just my first or first & last initials. Google+ doesn't accept that. I don't want to use my last name, because it's unusual enough to act like a "come harass me" beacon to an abusive ex-BF stalker I don't want any contact with.
Idon't buy that it's for those users' comfort at all, though... Google has been partnering incr
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On the other hand, at least it's not Facebook.
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There were actually quite a few verified cases where Google suspended or even purged accounts over the names policy. A few links I found from a quick search:
Wikipedia's "Nymwars" article [wikipedia.org] names a few
Google Plus deleting accounts en masse [zdnet.com]
Limor “Ladyada” Fried's brief post on being suspended [adafruit.com]
Violet Blue: Too Much Unnecessary Drama [zdnet.com]
William Shatner's Profile Temporarily Removed From Google+ [pcmag.com]
Last Iheard, Google was allowing obvious pseudonyms in the "also known as"type field, but still required a "real
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Why are so many people weary about their identity online, and at the same time, so many log into facebook as themselves, and log all of their personal lives' "data", daily. Such extremes.
Because the 3 billion people online aren't actually 3 billion clones but actually different people?
Basically your question boils down to: why do different people do different things.
I think the answer should now be obvious to you.
Re:What is the issue with creating a Google+ accou (Score:5, Insightful)
I keep seeing the seeing these paranoid critters screaming bloody murder about being forced to use Google+. What exactly is the issue with creating a Google+ account and not adding any information you do not want to share? Please enlighten me!
Has the privacy disaster that is Facebook not once entered your brain after all these years?
People are losing jobs, and failing to get jobs, because of this nonsense, people are being forced to turn over social network account passwords, and the accounts, with or without passwords are being mined, not only by advertisers, but also by government agencies. [businessinsider.com]
Look, its fine that you buy into this stuff, but don't drag me into it, just because you don't see a problem in your little world. Even teenagers are starting to realize facebook is a trap. [techcrunch.com]
There is simply no reason to believe Google+ is going to be any different. You can see the creeping invasion already.
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The big part of that problem of course is being forced to hand over passwords. Where the hell do people think they have the right to ask for those? Don't we have privacy laws? Some states at least have banned the practice, but it's quite telling that people think they can ask for that information in the first place. It's like asking someone for a copy of their diary, or personal mail to their friends. Say what you want about Google, but they've (so far) had a damn good record of keeping your information p
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> Has the privacy disaster that is Facebook not once entered your brain after all these years?
For the eleventh time, nobody is forcing you to add any information you do not want to share. If you have G+ account with no information in it, that is pretty close to not having an account. Do not add any information to it that you do not want to be public. Is that really hard?
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Oh, it's much easier than that.
I just refuse to sign up for Google Plus.
Done.
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What is in it for you? You get to use a Google service for free. That's what. Obviously nobody is forcing you. So there is little room to complain.
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What is in it for you? You get to use a Google service for free. That's what. Obviously nobody is forcing you. So there is little room to complain.
I look at their ads. Its not exactly free is it?
(And before someone thinks to school me on Adblock, I already have it. But there is a lot of stuff on the net you simply can't get to with Adblock turned on).
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I've actually never run into a problem using adblock. NoScript, yes, but not AdBlock.
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Icebike is probably talking about the small minority of sites that are coded to detect Adblock's mere presence and refuse to load. Here's one error page (can't figure out which site it originally came from) that I noticed in my older browser history earlier:
https://adscendmedia.com/gateway_adblock.php?p=13727 [adscendmedia.com]
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there is a lot of stuff on the net you simply can't get to with Adblock turned on).
Report the problem sites at the Adblock forum -- the people behind the extension & EasyList-type subscriptions really want to know about those incidents so they can tweak the filters to prevent that problem. (While Ican usually find a filter that's interfering with a site, I've now seen a few sites that detect Adblock's mere presence and refuse to load, so I'm guessing you mean that sort of trouble.)
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Well, I have a middle name as well in real life:
"Your Name Here".
Re:I don't see the problem (Score:5, Insightful)
Has it never occurred to you that some of us DO NOT WANT to use facebook?
just for example (Score:2)
Answers.com requires a Facebook account (Score:2)
I have yet to encounter a site that requires facebook
Spotify used to require it. Answers.com still does; its native authentication system is closed to new users.
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I've recently been enjoying discovering neat projects on Kickstarter. I have friends who use Kickstarter and possibly family, too. But, despite Kickstarter having it's own authentication system and profile pages for users, there no way to associate yourself with other Kickstarter members without being friends with them on Facebook, which leaves me out completely since I refuse to use Facebook.
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If not RSS, then what other than RSS? (Score:2)
just accept that RSS was a failed excrement
What alternative to RSS do you recommend for aggregating headlines from multiple sources without having to go through FB or TWTR or a comparable bottleneck?
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Feedly isn't, what's worse is Feedly recently gained large numbers of users from people who were actively dissatisfied with Google so expecting them to just accept G+ authentication being forced on them was never going to end well.