

Googling ourselves to death - Libertatea
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/kathleen-parker-googling-ourselves-to-death/2013/06/14/ea004bba-d532-11e2-8cbe-1bcbee06f8f8_story.html

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driverdan
Or you could do what I've done (and I'm guessing many other HN users) and
engineer the results that come up. Search for my name and you get what I want
you to see, at least for the first few SERPs. Obviously this isn't possible
for everyone (very common names, celebrities with too much coverage) but for
those who can it doesn't take a lot of effort.

My opinion is that it's far better to get the information out there you want
people to see than have nothing at all.

~~~
TillE
Do people actually Google _names_ expecting good information? My name is not
extremely common, but it is shared by a few people more prolific or well-known
than me, such that the results are useless. I know virtually nobody with a
unique name.

But search for my email address and you'll get much more interesting stuff.

~~~
incision
_> "Do people actually Google names expecting good information?"_

Anecdotally, no.

In my experience, the people who are quick to Google the new hire/candidate
are salivating for a way to pre-emptively discredit "the new guy".

I've encountered several people who are pretty obsessive about this and not
only Google everyone they meet but have alerts set up for their own names.

I have a relatively unique name yet you won't find anything about me in the
first pages of Google results. If you dig, you'll eventually hit a LinkedIn or
G+ pages which I've been very careful about sharing anything on.

------
dendory
Of my immediate family, only one has a Facebook profile, and none of them
would come up on Google, none share any image online nor do they trust things
like cloud storage or online banking. It's worth noting that a big portion of
the world is still fairly unknown to Google.

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dvt
When people search for my name (relatively rare), they get my Stack Overflow
profile, my LinkedIn profile (which I don't use), my G+ profile (which I don't
use), my Facebook profile, my Github profile, and my blog (alongside various
other stuff).

As long as you're not an idiot (herp-a-derp here's a public picture of me
getting shitfaced in Vegas), I think you can control your online persona
fairly well. I'm always amazed at those people (that presumably work in the
tech industry) that aren't aware of what their online persona consists of and
get fired/in trouble over online stuff.

Seriously people, Google yourselves (hopefully not to death)!

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nickodell
Google's CEO said, "You can just move," but I think that's out of context.
Here's the whole phrase: "Street View, we drive exactly once. You can just
move, right?" He also retracted the statement later:

>UPDATE: Google CEO Eric Schmidt has offered a response to comments he made
during his appearance on the Parker Spitzer show last Friday.

>Schmidt's statement reads: "As you can see from the unedited interview, [...]
I clearly misspoke. If you are worried about Street View and want your house
removed please contact Google and we will remove it."

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hawkharris
Being completely anonymous is neither practical or desirable for most working
people. You need an online reputation in order to stay competitive.

The better solution is to control your online reputation. Prospective
employers may need to search for you. If you have a website in your name
and/or have other public posts online, you can control your image. It also
gives you a platform through which you can respond to any criticism or
misinformation.

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nicolaus
The article conflates what I can do online with what my government, via
projects like PRISM and others we've not heard of. My government using the
same tools as I can use, perhaps augmenting it to do it on a larger scale, is
not the same thing as my government using its vast resources and monopoly on
coercive power to muscle its way into everything everyone can and has said
with impunity.

------
danso
I wonder if employers think it weird when Googling a job candidate when they
find nothing at all about that person?

~~~
skore
It's strange - I find it both weird and cool at the same time when a google
search about a person comes back without information. Weird because - who does
that? Cool because - it's possible that this person is very good at managing
their privacy. But my head cannot decide and in the end I'm mostly frustrated
that my desire for information was left hanging. I completely know that it's
wrong and bad, but, well, the feeling is there. Weird times we live in.

It also reminds me, again, of the joke making its round when google+ started:

It had an uncommonly long signup form, the joke being "Come on google, quit
playing games - you already know all of that about me. Why bother asking?"

~~~
Zigurd
I'm the first result for googling my first name. I look at it as being a bit
like Bono, or Cher.

~~~
skore
Careful, though - that might just be your filter bubble.

~~~
Zigurd
I've only tested it in reasonably random settings a few times, so, you may be
right about the filter bubble. What are your results? (If you've seen pictures
you'll know I'm not the bodybuilder with the "zigurd" account name on some
bodybuilding forum.)

~~~
skore
I live a terrible life in the shadow of a greater man with the exact same,
exactly as rare name -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Deutsch](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Deutsch)

(although my twitter does show up on page 2 when anonymous, page 2 when logged
in, so there.)

------
1morepassword
Privacy wasn't lost to technology, nor was it given away voluntarily, at least
not consciously. It was _stolen_ by greedy corporations. Governments came
second, they mostly just leverage the work of said corporations.

This is not a sign of the times, an inevitable result of technological
"progress". It is a conscious act of greed and disrespect which can be undone
by democracy and law.

Of course we can never stop the abusive invasion of privacy through technology
altogether, but neither can we completely stop theft, burglary, vandalism,
murder and rape. That doesn't mean it should be legal.

To live in a world where smoking weed is illegal but violating the privacy of
millions is a respectable business model is not the result of some
irreversible force of nature. This is not "normal". It's a choice.

This can be changed. What Google does to the detriment of the privacy of
millions can be made a crime. Privacy is not doomed to be lost forever.

~~~
jes
I think that DuckDuckGo has seen an increase in traffic since this series of
stories has broken. I use them myself.

I would be happy to pay a reasonable premium to those companies that chose to
take my privacy seriously. Companies that don't take my privacy seriously can
compete for people who don't care as much about their privacy.

For the record, I'm ok with legalizing weed, too.

~~~
Pherdnut
But we don't even know for sure yet whether they had a choice and how this all
came about. They're not allowed to talk about it. They could compromise
DuckDuckGo and they would be legally bound to not say anything either. At this
point I'm just waiting to see if they take this seriously. If they don't. I
have to find non-US-alternatives to practically everything I use.

