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Comment by gaius | Hacker News Reader

Sure it is. On the kit that Company X owns, it gets to set whatever policies it likes.

I think the word "social" is confusing people. These are not public utilities like electricity or water.

The argument to be made is not that Google has no right to set a "real names only" policy, but rather that Google OUGHT not set such a policy because it is harmful in the ways others have been describing.

The cost of that freedom is everyone who uses/would like to use your service, is free to complain loudly and campaign for change.

If you're confident your business model can survive that sort of criticism, then you are free to do as you please. But without a monopoly and/or high cost of entry, eventually someone else is going to come along with different, more acceptable policies, and you lose.

Facebook is currently playing the customer lock-in/high cost of change by preventing you from exporting your data conveniently.

> Sure it is. On the kit that Company X owns, it gets to set whatever policies it likes.

Not when Company X is bound by the edict "Don't be evil," as is the parent of the product in question, here.

You have a fundamental right to represent your identity in whatever way is necessary to protect yourself from harm or harassment. Any company that makes money from codifying your identity but doesn't recognize that right is run by assholes.

You have a fundamental right

That's exactly when I mean. Where is this "fundamental right" in UK, EU, US or any law? These are not public utilities! Please don't confuse your personal preferences with "the Constitution".

It's a fundamental right to go by whatever name you want in Common Law actually. You have to do it fairly consistently for entities to HAVE to recognize it though, and it does a good fuckup of your credit reports when you change, and is pretty hard to do pre-18 (and you have to tell lots of entities when you have a felony record).

So yeah, fundamental right is accurate.

http://www.washingtonlawhelp.org/documents/1488013400EN.pdf?...

They're public accomodations like hotels. As per the Civil Rights Act:

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited places of “public accommodation” from discrimination based on customers' race, sex, color, religion, or national origin.

If forcing use of "Legal Names" is a policy that unfairly targets a group protected by that, look for a lawsuit eventually.

Every hotel I've ever checked into wanted to see my passport or credit card. So apparently a public accomodation does have the right to know your real name.

You most certainly can get a credit card under a pseudonym. If you're not doing it for fraudulent purposes, it's done all the time (very popular in Asian families). In some states you must file a DBA to do it, but you can.

It is a legally recognized right to use an assumed name in most jurisdictions in the US. In many of them, you don't even have to use it all the time, although some require that for it to be valid, and it becomes a name change then.

For instance, read http://federal-circuits.vlex.com/vid/kreuter-v-united-states... look at cite 5.

Discrimination is illegal.

Companies can't just do whatever they want. They are bound by laws and ethics. If these policies are found to discriminate against rape survivors (for example) they could very well be ruled illegal.

Don't confuse a legal grey area with something being legal.

"You must use your real name here" is not discrimination and it is not illegal. It may be something you disagree with, but that's another matter.

Discrimination would be a "whites only" social network, and regardless of legality, I'm sure they exist.

A good lawyer could convince a jury that requiring real names amounts to a "whites only" or a "men only" rule, which would be illegal.

I do not believe that's true. If it was, somebody would have already dinged Facebook for millions of dollars.

Using this logic, nothing new will ever happen because if something could happen it would have already happened.

Well, let me modify that to say "if something that could have made someone millions of dollars for not doing much could happen it would have already happened", something I fervently believe.

Good lawyers have surprised me before, but that's so clearly false, as one glance at Facebook will show, that I have to think it would get laughed out of any courtroom.

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