I am spending entirely too much energy and effort grousing about Google. This, which will be my LAST point on the matter, and is cross/re-posted from a comment I left with Jon Pincus; I think it sums it up quite nicely (paraphrased for clarity in this context):
Identify is not mutually exclusive to the matters of authentication and deniability (to me, anyway); I find these concepts work far better together than in conflict with one another. Names, obviously, ARE “about identity” (duh); any label is both an identifier as well as a dis-identifier… it would be obtuse to an extreme to pretend otherwise.
This said, it is equally true that the crux of the matter and the reason why names become an issue (as they have with Google+) is due to incomplete, vague, or otherwise inconsistent consideration relative to the functions and legitimacy of the concepts of “authentication” and “deniability”.
If one asserts that an individual has the right to choose how they are identified (outside of legally in such venues as legal identity is required), then one must also accept that the concept of deniability is inalienable in all contexts outside the legal.
Additionally, one must accept that authentication has the capacity to destroy deniability, thus, issues of authentication must give way to deniability in all venues that are not legal in nature.
If this becomes the foundational relationship, resolving all such matters is greatly simplified AND the primary assertion (as above outlined) remains unassailed.