Even Google hates its own 'names' policy

Google's only big blunder in the creation of its if not excellent Google+ social network has been a flawed policy on what users are allowed to call themselves. Everybody hates the policy. Even Google hates it.

But that's not the reason. To tell the truth, that doesn't even make sense. Where in the real world does using my real name let people find me? The phone book? Do they for all that make phone books? I don't get it.

The real world

"We're going to force you to listen to random telephone conversations of people using Google Voice because we wanted to make Google+ more like the real world."

If I know your name, I can find out everything you've posted on message boards, your address and phone number, whether or not you own your home, what your political affiliations are.

Strategic incompatibility

There's as well a strategic incompatibility. If Google's plan is to offer some exclusive little private club in one corner of the Internet a mere alternative to Facebook, at that time the real names policy is no big deal.

But if Google's strategy is to be a universal social layer for the Internet, at that time the names policy is fatally flawed. You can't expect to exclude everyone who wants or needs a pseudonym and expect to be the world's social platform.

Google could even add two more controls that would make the change more consistent with Google's objectives. First, allow people to hide their real name only if their account is associated with a cell phone number. This would prevent people from signing up for one account afterwards another, at the time abusing Google+ policies pursuant to this agreement serial pseudonyms.