Friendster wannabe, Orkut, just deleted the accounts of several of my online chums, LanguageHat, Quonsar, and Madamjujujive. Their crime? Using aliases instead of their real names. The horror! They're coming for me next, no doubt.

I really expected better from a Google-related service, but it's becoming increasingly clear that it's only raison d'être is as a clandestine information-gathering tool. Why else would they be insisting that members use their real names? I wonder when they're going to start selling personal statistics to businesses?

Good thing that most of my personal info was bogus. Pricks.

UPDATE: as expected, I received a nastygram from the Orkut brownshirts demanding that I drop my nick and use my real name, or else face "account suspension without notification". Could these clowns be any more clueless and heavy handed? Google may be great with search engines, but that's about it.