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Comment by sp332 | Hacker News Reader

I see where it allows nicknames, but I don't see where it allows pseudonyms. Did I miss it?

Edit: I see, Mashable got some quotes from Horowitz that aren't in the original Google+ post: http://mashable.com/2012/01/23/google-plus-allows-pseudonyms...

Google+ is not, however, accepting new pseudonyms. This is designed for “established ones.” Horowitz explained that the new account naming option is intended for “people who have earned credit in other social systems and want to redeem that credit in Google+”.

This is really important since you have to fill out a Google+ profile when you sign up for a Gmail account. I can't believe they would throw away the ability to make an anonymous email account.

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Just put in a generic name, like Victor Huntsman. Put in whatever you want for the email address and nickname.

If you'll read the announcement, it's pretty clear that Google+ names must pass a review process. And in case the name is "flagged", then you must provide:

     - References to an established identity offline in 
       print media, news articles, etc

     - Scanned official documentation, such as a 
       driver’s license

     - Proof of an established identity online with a 
       meaningful following

By giving a bogus name, you'll end up losing your online Google+ identity and access to other Google services, such as Gmail.

Wasn't it established that a bogus name would not make you lose access to gmail/docs/etc?

Well, considering how some kids lost their Gmail account after signing up for Google+ and told the truth about their age, I wouldn't count on it.

That's COPPA, though.

You could argue that they should be supporting accounts for kids under 13 with parental permission (like Yahoo does, for instance), but that's not the same thing.

Edit: and to preempt some class of responses: yes, as has been covered on HN before, COPPA has a clause that says not to warn users that setting their age to under 13 will prevent them from accessing content, and that you can't (generally) let them go back and change it later.

Yeah, but why take away the access to Gmail?

If Facebook/Twitter bans you, you don't lose access to Gmail. It makes no sense.

Google is a single company, and just finds it easier to ban you completely from their entire network than to let you have access in piecemeal to certain services.

A company can't ban a user from one service because they believe they're underage (to comply with COPA), then pretend to not know they should be banned from other services of the company where COPA would also apply.

It's not "easier" to do that, it's just what you have to do since it's so difficult to make any social / messaging service COPA-compliant.

I inititially wrote just that but changed it....

I'm not sure that COPPA applies to GMail. Certainly, Yahoo mail doesn't stop me from entering a birth-date under the age of 13 when signing up for it.

Yahoo will let you create the account, but then you'll have to go through a whole set of other steps to create a COPPA-compliant email account, including having a parent provide a credit card.

That's different from how they would handle it if they had an existing account on Yahoo Mail and found out that the owner was less than 13 - I suspect they would have to turn it off as well, because they won't let you create a non-COPPA account once you've admitted you're under 13.

I don't understand. It is an argument for diversifying providers for email, social networking, etc, but, in this case, gmail/COPPA requires you to be over 13, so if google knows (or thinks it knows) a user is under 13, this does seem like the expected outcome. Am I missing your point?

Also the kid in that discussion was from the Netherlands, where COPPA doesn't apply.

Actually, COPPA is formulated in a way so that the nationality of the kid doesn't matter, only the nationality of the company.

You don't need a G+ profile for Gmail.

I thought you needed to sign up for Gmail and Google+ if you want a Google account now. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3489266 But actually, there's a way to get a Gmail account without Google+ http://mail.google.com/mail/signup and a way to get a Google account without Gmail or Google+ https://accounts.google.com/NewAccount if you know the URLs.

You don't need to know any special URLs either. All you have to do is stop the signup process after your Gmail account is created (step 1) but before you create your Google+ profile (step 2).

To be fair probably 99% of people going through the sign-up flow won't realize this.

Then Google will be happy to tell us users don't care about privacy:

> The vast majority of users sail through our signup process -- in fact, only about 0.1% submit name appeals.

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