Dear Google,
I have been using your services for over a decade. I have used your search engine, Gmail, Gchat, Google Books, Google Analytics, Google Docs, YouTube, and very briefly Blogger–and been universally pleased with most. For the past few months, I was also using Google+, and was extremely pleased with this new service. I enjoyed the design, the privacy controls, the video chat function, the ease of editing my updates and comments. There was little that did not strike me favorably.
You will, I assume, notice the past tense.
Due to an oversight on my part, I signed up using a combination of my legal name and my pen name, which as you know is in violation of your Names Policy. I wished to make it easier to distinguish me from the worldwide population of Leslie Browns, as there are already several on G+. I received a notification of my violation on the 14th or 15th of September, 2011. I promptly changed my name to comply with the names policy; initially using my first name, middle initial, and surname, but on reflection speedily altering this to simply my first and last name, to avoid any possible further violations of the policy. In the process, parts of the “Edit Your Profile” page became repeatedly unresponsive, forcing me to make several attempts before I was finally able to alter my name. I submitted feedback advising of this issue. At this point I received notice via my profile page that my account was under review and that it would remain suspended until it was approved. The message advised me that this would take a few days.
It has been nearly a month since this occurred. I have received no communications from Google+ or employees. I attempted to find an email address or other form of contact; no such avenue being forthcoming I registered my concerns via the feedback tool on Google+, explaining my situation and inquiring whether anything was wrong. I have had no reply to this communication, either. In addition, recently I discovered that at some point the display name under which emails from my Gmail account arrive has been changed from my pen name to my legal name.
To say that this situation is problematic would be an understatement. First, the fact that I cannot use my pen name in any searchable, easily visible form on G+ creates difficulty for me as a blogger and a writer. My readers cannot easily find me on the network, if they do not already know my legal name (which is likely, as I try to keep mentions of it on my blog to a minimum). This is, of course, only the most minor harm caused by your Names Policy, as many others have already made clear.
Second, your handling of my particular case represents egregious customer service. As a user I have endeavored to comply with your policy, however inconvenient I may have found it. For my pains I have remained suspended for nearly a month with no communication to explain my continued suspension. Your unannounced interference with how I identify myself on Gmail displays further insensitivity to your users.
I am posting this as an open letter for two reasons. First, I have been unable to find any other means of informing you of my concerns, either by email or regular mail (while your business address is available, I could not find any person or department to whom to send this letter). Second, in order to inform other users of your poor conduct as a company, so that they may make informed judgments about their use of your services. I am, at the present moment, seriously considering closing most if not all of my accounts on your various services.
What would rectify this situation to my satisfaction?
- Allowing Google+ users to control their identities–that is, to use persistent pseudonyms and to make the various names by which they’re “commonly known” visible and searchable.
- Reinstating my Google+ account.
Sincerely,
Leslie Brown
two-bit Jeremiah
bootheeling @ gmail.com
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p.s. If anyone knows other places I could profitably repost this, or is willing to share it, I would be very grateful.
EDIT 10/13/2011: My profile has now bee restored. Last night, for kicks, I tried the expedient of changing my profile name to my first name and middle initial, plus last name, as I’d initially done. This produced a pop-up asking if I would like to resubmit this name for approval. I clicked “submit.” This morning, I went on G+ and was greeted by a pop-up that informed me that my profile was suspended, as the name I had submitted did not comply with their standards. I had the option to submit another name (with a link) or to appeal (no link). I clicked the first link, and submitted the version Google had been blithely ignoring for the past month–my first name and last name. Within minutes my profile was restored.
I don’t understand what happened here. While I feel mild gratification at having my profile back, and I will give Google a little more time to clean up their act, I am still very unhappy about both the policy itself (I may post a link primer tomorrow in case you don’t see what’s at issue here) and the handling of my own case. I notice that Google has made a lot of little fixes to make the whole suspension process seem more transparent, but still makes contacting them difficult, and I think that misses the entire point. I will continue to tell Google and the Internet how unhappy I am.
