

Google Suggests changing your name, I suggest google is out of touch with tech. - Cyndre
http://adamdomoney.posterous.com/google-suggests-changing-your-name-i-suggest

======
JangoSteve
Image search? You won't even need to go that far. Just put the person's
current name into Google, and let it suggest, "Did you mean [previous name]?"

~~~
Cyndre
Should have thought of that one.

And in the future changing your name will result in a "Did you mean [previous
name]?" link on google name search's.

Kudos to you

------
mike-cardwell
What was the exact quote please? Including the surrounding conversation...

I find it strange that people keep writing about what he said, without writing
what he actually said, including the context...

------
randomwalker
danah boyd has a great post on this:
[http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2010/08/16/name-
ch...](http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2010/08/16/name-changes-
reputation.html)

Summary: "First, it completely contradicts historical legal trajectories where
name changes have become increasingly more difficult. Second, it fails to
account for the tensions between positive and negative reputation. Third, it
would be so exceedingly ineffective as to be just outright absurd."

She provides strong evidence for all of these.

------
greyman
As I see it, Eric's suggestion was indeed quite ridiculous, but the problem
itself is not. Your digital past can really backfire or harm your future
chances in life.

[Maybe the people screening candidates based on their past need to stop and
think about the things they did as a teenager.]

Maybe yes, but what if they will not stop doing such screening? The the
problem Eric tried to solve still remains.

~~~
nanairo
Then they might miss some great candidates and be crushed by the company that
had better screening. The former will only pick candidates from the pool of
full of people with perfect past, the latter from the pool of people with
"acceptable" pasts (i.e. minor offences ok, major ones like murder not ok).

------
eru
The solution to image search is plastic surgery, of course.

------
axl
Google's founders certainly weren't concerned with their collegiate life being
permanent record.

<http://digg.com/tech_news/First_Google_Site_> points at
[http://web.archive.org/web/20021030152640/www-
db.stanford.ed...](http://web.archive.org/web/20021030152640/www-
db.stanford.edu/~sergey/photos/drag96.jpg) (Sergey Brin)

------
jacquesm
They're not only out of touch with tech, they're out of touch with society as
well. Changing your name is not without social stigma.

------
will_critchlow
It is pretty ridiculous in the form presented. It certainly doesn't scale.
Having said that, there are sometimes sensible options around changing what
most people search for.

Marriage is an obvious example. But even if you are just applying for a job,
if you use a different version if your name, the search results can be very
different. Compare the results for "will critchlow" and "william critchlow".

~~~
Cyndre
But now add in a few more pieces of information. Like the city, state,
country. And the type of job they are applying for. Also roughly age, previous
jobs, any information listed on their resume.

By itself I agree its meaningless, but when combined with the other pieces of
information the potential employer has access to it is very revealing.

~~~
will_critchlow
Oh. Don't get me wrong, you can still dig in and find stuff, but as a simple
separation of work and non-work (especially if some stuff about me did rank
for both versions), it can be easier than other options.

------
spinchange
There needs to be some kind of NoFollow attribute for 'social objects.'

------
varjag
I would like to see Eric Schmidt trying it himself.

------
toxicflavor
Eric Schmidt's comments are being taken out of context. His statements were a
warning that unless young people particularly start taking their online
privacy seriously, they may be left with no recourse for erasing their online
past, short of some extreme measure like changing their name. But he was not
"suggesting" to change one's name - rather, he was warning about the dangers
of diminished online privacy.

~~~
akadruid
Unless you have a distinctive name, and the internet gets a lot better at
remembering over the long term, there's still nothing to worry about.

Try finding anything from 10 years ago or for anyone named Smith, Jones,
Taylor, or Patel. I'll bet that doesn't improve in the next ten years either.

