While this post over at uncov, the Techcrunch for cynics, might seem a little inflammatory, people search is apparently going to be one of the big new search tools we use from now on. I went on to Spock to see what it had to say about me, and, after battling with many errors and server problems (this doesn't feel like a site that was ready to come out of beta), managed to find my profile listed. And filled with manifold and varied errors and omissions. I didn't study at Manchester uni, it's been quite a while since I was an editor on Bath's student newspaper(better, of course, while I was there!)and, although I am entreprenurial, I certainly don't run the beerandbreasts.com website!
Most impressively, however, it seems to have been entirely unable to connect me to my own personal site, LinkedIn profile, del.icio.us links, last.fm music tastes, Second Life avatar, drupal.org membership or any other of the countless online profiles I maintain. In fact, it only found my MySpace, which is no longer maintained or active (MySpace makes the web designer in me die a little every time I have to visit).
I was given the opportunity to claim my profile, and potentially correct some of these errors, but unfortunately the site was incapable of letting me do this. And asked for my password for myspace (whichis an egregious privacy violation, IMO). So Spock is publishing details about me, that I currently have no control over, that it has harvested from out-of-date or simply incorrect material. Could I sue them for libel? Doubtful, as they can simply claim this is aggregation of what there is about me, and that, notionally at least, I could control this content. And, to be honest, I don't really mind; I will take control of that profile as soon as it becomes technologically feasible, and I will ensure that it is professional and accurate.
As UnCov points out, however, people even 2 or 3 years younger than me are putting far more of their lives online, and in far more promiscuous fashions; any embarassing photos of me are hidden behind the veil of Facebook' privacy settings...only my arty pretentious stuff goes to my Flickr account. Similarly, there are few, if any, aspects of my personal life you'll discover through Google.
But many people at University or college now blog every aspect of their lives through their MySpace blogs, blogger.com accounts and so on. Even anonymous profiles can be easily identified, if they contain scurrilous enough content. I think that having such exposed and accessible private (public?) lives is going to change the jobs market over the next few years. Already I google any job applicant, and generally very little comes up. What am I to do if I end up seeing candidates dancing like loons, publically (overly) drunk or, more worryingly, on the BNP friends list on MySpace (the first two probably endear a candidate to me, the latter is cause for blacklisting).
So my advice here is for people to be careful of what they put online about themselves; Google's memory is very long, and very persistent; my first (atrocious) attempts at a home page can still be accessed through the cache function with the right search, and incidental emails I have sent to various mailing lists fill much of the google results for my name. Thankfully, I'm not a troll or a flamer, because on the internet, what you say is who you are, and if you want to establish a permanent identity associated with who you are in real life, you should behave as you would in any public forum where you can be identified.
If you can't resist flaming noobs, do it under the umbrella of a completely unconnected identity, or, even better, grow up.