Comment by buran77
6 hours ago
> How is Google supposed to know if Ellie Piee is a real person?
That doesn't really matter. Anyway it's silly to question whether Google, a multi-trillion dollar company, can validate someone's ID when they already do it in many other aspects of their business.
But is Google treating some claims different from others? Are Ellie Piee's claim against Gergely Orosz's article, and the latter's appeal treated exactly the same as any other? In other words, if I use an obviously bogus identity to make DMCA claims against Google content on their own platforms, will they immediately take it down and then go through the same standard appeal process? If not, then the system isn't "abused" it's used exactly as it was designed to be used. In an asymmetrical manner to the benefit of some.
So the real question isn't "how can Google validate an identity", it's "why is Google treating some different from others"? It sure isn't an accident.
Google has no problems "verifying" me with mapping to my phone number, etc. (Actually, it does, after a long and storied startup career, I can no longer create a new Google account because my phone number "has been used too often").
There's also the asymmetry of "you don't need to supply ID to make a DMCA claim, but you will to appeal it", which people can and have used to discover identities for more harassment.