Comments on: Breaking the TOS before you even start

By: IdentityBlog - Digital Identity, Privacy, and the Internet's Missing Identity Layer

Mon, 13 Aug 2007 19:44:05 +0000

[...] see that I’m just a less contemplative person than Pamela Dingle, who got me to fess up by writing this piece: Today I actually for just ONE single minute paused to seriously contemplate the consequences of [...]

By: Janelle

Janelle — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 04:24:39 +0000

Hey girl,

Of course there is always the ability to lie of FB. Plenty of people do as I have found out. Just do a search for the word Identity on FB and you find that there are a ton of people with “Identity” for their name. A la “Alternate Identity” “My Other Identity” (actual names on facebook). What I’m wondering is which one are you and why aren’t you my friend? :-) My guess is the guys as FB don’t care and why should they since the whole point is about social networking.

What is interesting is that there is nothing stopping me from creating a FB account for you, and if you don’t soon, I will:-) I have your picture, I know your birthday and I could pretty resonably start assuming a network of your friends.

Bite the bullet girl. Can’t wait to see you on FB.

By: Pamela

Pamela — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 22:40:13 +0000

You *especially* need pseudonyms on google mail — you have to have that email address to register at all the other sites and do your clickback validation, not to mention for recovery of lost passwords… besides, if you register ‘cheekymonkey’ on slashdot, and show an email address containing your real name, well you’ve kinda blown your cover, you know?

By: Mark Wahl

Mark Wahl — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 21:20:57 +0000

“Even on Facebook, isn’t the whole point to allow your “friends” to be able to find you?” — I suspect that a substantial majority of my friends do not use their full, legal name in real-life social interactions. E.g., substituting “bob” for “robert” or “bill” for “william”, using their middle name as their first name, omitting their surname or generational qualifiers entirely, etc.

By: dkearnsgmailcom

dkearnsgmailcom — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 17:51:24 +0000

But for most of these sites (Google Mail?) what purpose would a pseudonym serve? Even on Facebook, isn’t the whole point to allow your “friends” to be able to find you? And wouldn’t a pseudonym like “ID girl” lead to unwanted attention?

By: John

John — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 17:50:03 +0000

What anonymity do we really have on the net? Unless you’re using something to specifically disguise your identity, it’s more illusory than real.

That said, I do read the TOS of a site when I sign up, and it do not use the site if I do not intend to abide by the TOS. Slashdot does not have my real name, because it’s optional. SourceForge does, though that’s in part because I’m a developer on an open source project for which I had to sign legal documents concerning intellectual property (as did a representative of my employer).

IAANAL, but legally (at least in the US) one is allowed to use any name one wishes, as long as it is not for fraudulent purposes. In that sense, a pseudonym would be complete and accurate. On the other hand, it may be a fraudulent purpose to use the web site without identifying the “real” you, as the site seems to expect.

TOS violations are common, and rarely meet with any kind of enforcement action. Multiply, for instance, forbids posting of copyrighted material in the TOS, but makes it really easy to do, even encourages it by hosting playlists. It seems to be a case of using the TOS as a technical reason to drop an account if someone else complains. So, if the RIAA notices music being hosted on Multiply, the site proprietors say “We never intended that! Just look at our TOS. Let us know who is doing it, and we will kick them out.” Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. :-)