So why does Google require users to use their real names in their Google Plus profiles? Well, according to chairman Eric Schmidt, it’s so they can know who you are and make money off of you by directing you to Google advertisers and Google services (with more advertisers).
Gawker points to a video from Schmidt talking to a Scotland-based group, where he said:
If we knew that it was a real person, then we could sort of hold them accountable, we could check them, we could give them things, we could you know bill them, you know we could have credit cards and so forth… we can have slightly better search results if I know a little bit about who you are…. We suggest YouTube videos that you should just watch one after the other. Well if I know the ones that you like, and again with your permission, I can merge that as a signal in, and get a better result.
Names are the key to the kingdom of datamining, crosschecking databases and generally helping advertisers exploit Google users.