Since Google+ was launched over six months ago, Google has only allowed users to create accounts using their real names. The Electronic Freedom Frontier and others have pointed out that allowing users to create pseudonyms for their accounts is a way to ensure freedom of expression for those who write online about controversial topics for which they could face political and legal retribution. In light of this, Google announced a change to its real names policy yesterday and said that it will allow users to use “alternate names.”

Google+ Allows Nicknames and Pseudonyms That Google Says Are “Established”

Google Product Vice President Bradley Horowitz explained the two new changes on Google+: First, users can now go to their profile and add a “nickname,” which will appear in the middle of their name or after it (so I could be, to use my Twitter account handle, “Kristina autismvox Chew” or “Kristina Chew autismvox”).

Second, users who wish to use an “established pseudonym” (i.e., +Madonna) instead of their real, actual name can do so provided that they submit certain documentation such as a scanned copy of their driver’s license or “proof of an established identity online with a meaningful following.” According to a post in Mashable, Google says that all such information — which one might not exactly want to just send off without knowing exactly who is inspecting it — will be destroyed once an account has been verified.

Google’s rationale for its real names policy for Google+ is to create a certain kind of “community,” as Google Engineer Yonatan Zunger explains in a comment quoted by Epeus’ epigone:

You get a different kind of community when people are known as Mary Smith than when they are known as captaincrunch42, and for a social product in particular we decided that the first kind of community is the one we want to build. In order to do that, we want to establish a general norm that the names you put in to the system should be names, not handles.

But  the new policy falls short of truly allowing for pseudonyms, Violet Blue writes. What Google is allowing for most users is a nickname and not much more.

Google’s Real Names Policy and China’s Real Names Regulations

Furthermore, Google has its own logic for what it deems to be an “established pseudonym.” You have to be so “well-known under this handle that it would be bizarre” not to let you join Google+ with anything but this name, according to Zunger.

Epeus’ epigone says that Google+ has an algorithm that decides “what is a name and what isn’t. ….You have to pass as normal, like call centre workers forced to learn to sound American.” Google is the arbiter of what is “normal” here, that is. The new real names policy only “encourage[s] fakers” while it “discourage[s] those who need a pseudonym for good reasons.”