What is it: The industry catfight over the use of pseudonyms came to light in the privacy community, but crossed over into the advertising industry. Advertisers and publishers have wondered aloud about the potential positives and dangers of a real-name-based advertising ecosystem, wedded with search. Google chairman Eric Schmidt created a stir when he stated to National Public Radio reporter Andy Carvin that he viewed Google+ as essentially an identity service with links around your friends.The controversy was further fueled when Google confirmed to a Wired.com reporter that it was planning to study the use of Google’s +1 clicks, which are pulled from Google+ profiles, as a signal that would influence “the ranking and appearance of websites in search results.”
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