
Internet sociologist danah boyd has a great essay on the problem with Google Profile's "real names" policy, which I've written a lot about. To danah, it comes down to this:
The people who most heavily rely on pseudonyms in online spaces are those who are most marginalized by systems of power. “Real names” policies aren’t empowering; they’re an authoritarian assertion of power over vulnerable people.
I think that's somewhat overstated, but it does raise a question I've been wondering about myself: Why would Google push so strongly for having real names? I don't think it's simply to better monetize Google Profiles; after all, Google does a fine job monetizing Gmail with contextual ads which don't require exposing real names, just real interests. So why the fixation on real names?
The reason, I strongly suspect, stems from Google's own corporate culture, which places a high premium on hiring employees who've graduated from Ivy League or other top universities, and with high GPAs. Many friends and acquaintances who are Googlers past and present have told me it's extremely rare for the company to hire someone outside that criterion, even though the tech industry is full of talented hackers, erstwhile slackers, and artists who don't qualify. (Steve Jobs dropped out of an obscure Oregon college after one semester.) I've also consistently heard that this attitude emanates from the very top of Google, from founders and Stanford alum Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
How this aspect of Google's corporate culture might influence its policy on real names seems pretty obvious to me: When you place such a high value on an identity based on real associations from elite, recognizable institutions, pseudonyms probably seem irrelevant, ridiculous, or even fraudulent. To a Googler with a Harvard degree and a 3.9 GPA, it must appear unfathomable that anyone would want to invest so much activity in an identity where your college background (or for that matter, your job at Google) isn't first and foremost a part of your online identity.
But as danah points out, there are many many people who don't have such a position of power and status. Though as I said, I don't quite agree real names are simply "an authoritarian assertion of power":