Oy. Maybe if you have a relatively Googleable name like "Dave Winer", you could expect your theory to hold. But GOOGLE SHOULD KNOW BETTER. Try correlating my name (Michael Roberts) with anything just by name. It can't be done. There are an estimated 5589 Michael Robertses in the US (howmanyofme.com) and several of us in any given town. And my legal first name is actually James, so you can't correlate that with airline reservations anyway (thanks so very much, TSA).
No, Google really didn't think this through here. And the "hoo-ha" (I'm not sure that means what you think it means) is about more than that. It's about a ToS that says "use the name your friends know you by" - often a pseudonym. Google will still delete your account with no recourse.
(This even omits the real-world examples of people who don't fit Google's Anglo naming assumptions - the real world really does consist of about 20% impossible hacks, and you'd think Google, of all companies, would get that, but they seem not to.)
Of course, Google's famous omission of any discernible customer service or appeals process only plays into this even more.
No, it's a trainwreck. Google is responding well, and it's true it's still actually a beta - but pseudonymity is important, and the ability to correlate with banking records is broken anyway. So why stick with it?
Lastname + zip is more than accurate enough to drive a lot of value for advertisers. It doesn't take a lot of precision to improve advertising efficiency. Link a creditcard to your google account and you're marketer's wet dream.
That's nice. The factor is about 5000. Census records are used for howmanyofme.com (1990 and 2000) - there were 423,777 Robertses versus 2,406 Winers, and there were over 4,000,000 Michaels versus 82,000 Daves.
I'm sure there are "lots" of people with your name in the US, but you aren't named Michael Roberts. Trust me. I am unGoogleable.
No, Google really didn't think this through here. And the "hoo-ha" (I'm not sure that means what you think it means) is about more than that. It's about a ToS that says "use the name your friends know you by" - often a pseudonym. Google will still delete your account with no recourse.
(This even omits the real-world examples of people who don't fit Google's Anglo naming assumptions - the real world really does consist of about 20% impossible hacks, and you'd think Google, of all companies, would get that, but they seem not to.)
Of course, Google's famous omission of any discernible customer service or appeals process only plays into this even more.
No, it's a trainwreck. Google is responding well, and it's true it's still actually a beta - but pseudonymity is important, and the ability to correlate with banking records is broken anyway. So why stick with it?