jul 15, 2014 - 3 Years Later, Google+ Drops Its Dumb Real Name Rule and Apologizes

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July: Google+ drops its “real name” rule and apologizes

Another signal that Google+ was shifting following Gundotra’s exit was when it abandoned its “real name” policy, three years after the user outrage.

While Google had started rolling back on the real name policy in January of 2012 by opening rules to include maiden names and select nicknames, it still displayed your real name alongside your chosen name. It was nowhere near what people wanted.

Google announced today’s change via (where else?) their Google+ page, and apologized that it took so long for them to make this decision. To quote’m directly:

We know you’ve been calling for this change for a while. We know that our names policy has been unclear, and this has led to some unnecessarily difficult experiences for some of our users. For this we apologize, and we hope that today’s change is a step toward making Google+ the welcoming and inclusive place that we want it to be.