Myspace Asking People To Use Real Name

Myspace seems to be pushing for its users to give up their real names. Read Myspace President Tom Anderson's blog and then ask yourself, "Why would you?".

What you need to know

Whether it is your display name or real name, it is data that it stored in Myspace's databases. The more data they collect from you, the more they and their data exchange partners will know about you too.

Forget the fact that both the display and real name are shown visually on the profile. The important thing to know is that it is stored and scraped as part of the document so any spider can scrape the data. If you don't know what a spider or crawler is, it is an automated computer program that goes into every website page and pulls out the data. It navigates along every link in the page deep crawling further and further until it finds the last page. While each page is being crawled, information is captured and stored in a database.

Who runs these spiders and crawlers? Anyone can. Google, Yahoo!, Ask, Wink, it is any company or individual who wants to grab Myspace data. It is subjected to rules that Myspace sets through a website server file called robots.txt that determines access. Here is what Myspace's robots.txt looks like presently (3/20/09):

The above says to any visiting robot, spider, or crawler "Anyone can come to Myspace and grab the data. We don't deny anyone. We are also making our website structure available to Google so they can crawl the site easier in our sitemap".

I would not recommend that you turn on the real name feature due to security and privacy standpoints. First, imagine all the weirdos stalking people on Myspace. Do you really want to give them your full real name? Then, letting those people go to public Internet sites to find out more about you such as where you live, what your family member names are, etc. like PeopleFinders.com, Wink.com, ZabaSearch.com etc. Consider also that Internet marketers now know a lot about you from your social profile and can send you targeted ads not only through email, but also directly to your homes and offices with such information. Knowing your full name just makes it easier for them to look you up.

Second, why would anyone want to show their real name to the public anyway? 90% of the people who use social networking are not celebrities. Are you a celebrity or trying to pretend to be one? The potential effects of privacy loss are worse than trying to be a faker.

Here's the raw code that I pulled out of the Myspace blog page. Because it is marked with a class of "blogRealName", any scraper can search for it and pull it out and know that this myspace profile is you:

Tom Says Give Up Your Real Name

If you read Tom's blog entry you'll notice a lot of people commented on it. Notice that most were young teenagers. When one younger girl told Tom that this was a "duh" idea Tom quickly "duh" her right back. Yes Tom, there are some smart kids out there that can read between the lines:

Tom wasn't actually honest in his message below. Here he says that the real name feature was "spreading gradually":

The data for the real name was obtained when you issued a friend request. Myspace implemented these two data fields asking for your first name and last name so that the receiver could identify you. That feature was in since last year so naturally it was "spreading gradually". Further this data is used as the default to show up as your real name.

Myspace was trying to capture your real name all along if you chose to type it in - most would in a friend request. I figured this was what they were trying to do all along and never put in my real name. Instead we mocked it seeing if it would change or be used somewhere. ;o)

So "Tom's" response was just a ploy to make it appear people accepted it quickly so they would too.

As you can see below, here is where they stored it before the real name feature was implemented:

And if you notice in the profile, its exactly the same data fields.

MySpace Wants Your Personal Information?

So why does Myspace really want your full real name? Here's an interesting connection I have been following. MyLife.com (formerly Reunion.com) has on board Richard Rosenblatt who was the former Chairman of Myspace. Last year, Reunion.com bought out social networking site scraper, Wink.com. Why would they do that?

Reunion.com has been hit with lawsuits, bad press, and discontent with the Internet public over the years that they recently changed their name to Mylife.com. One would say they did this to hide the bad publicity. The Better Business Bureau didnt fall for the name change and continues to give Mylife.com (Reunion.com) a "F" rating. And Wikipeda didn't let them off the hook either.

It is widely known that Reunion.com/Mylife.com has taken unethical and sly approaches to signing up members by tricking them with fake email messages and obtaining email addresses from their accounts. Many people have been burned by this email spoofing.

So what does this have to do with Tom asking people to enter in their real names? One could speculate that with the Myspace to Reunion/Mylife.com connection, they are in partnership with various people aggregators to build up information rich people databases.

Late last year Reunion.com bought out people finder website Wink,a website that scrapes Myspace, Twitter, Hi5, Facebook and Bebo profile pages and lets people find others on the Internet. Do social networks know this is being done? Would many agree to allow this if they knew it?

Just Don't Do It

This is why I am opposed to Tom's message about entering your real name. It is a terribly bad idea because it just makes these sites find you faster and build up more information about you.

If it isn't clear, my message to you is this - never give up your real name on any social network site. Even if "Tom" wants you to. By all means, there should be an opt-out/opt-in feature in all of these social networking websites to avoid crawlers from obtaining your personal data.