Google wants your real name on YouTube

If you try to comment on YouTube, you will be prompted to change your username to your real name, blogger Jim Younkin has discovered.

With the furore caused by Google's insistence on real names on its Google+ network (one that was ultimately solved by a verification program) still fresh in our minds, the internet giant is now trying to get YouTube users to switch over to their real names on the video streaming website.

The prompt won't appear until you try to make a comment — so if you're a "silent" YouTube user, it won't affect you at all. Which indicates to us that perhaps this is an attempt to minimise the amount of bullying that occurs on the site — websites on which people are forced to interact under their real names often have a lower rate of trolling.

The prompt will automatically scrape your name from your Google+ account — so, if you're operating on G+ under a pseudonym, you have little to worry about.

However, if you're happy with the current status quo, you're under absolutely no obligation to change your user name at all — although Google will ask you why you don't want to make the change, offering you six options to choose from (one of which is the always-handy "I don't know").

CNET Australia has contacted Google for comment.

Will you make the change to your real name?