Ok, you guys liked the questions so here are some more before I get started on my latest rant.
1. Have you ever "googled" yourself?
1a. If so, when is the last time you did so?
1b. How often do you "google" yourself?
2. Google yourself now... MAKE SURE YOU PUT YOUR NAME IN QUOTES
2a. How many results are you?
2b. How many are not you?
3. What is the most interesting thing about you that you discovered?
4. If an employer, potential employer, or educational institution that you applied to (such as UT) decided to "google" you as part of the application process, would you be in trouble?
Feel free to answer the questions in your responses to the post, or simply keep them to yourself.
So why the pop quiz? Because the short survey I read for class this week talks about internet privacy and it focuses on bloggers. Many bloggers during the study admited to getting into some kind of trouble over something they posted in a blog. This was either with friends and family or with an employer or potential employer. In light of the fact that 59% of the respondants had attended college, another 26% had a masters or professional degree, and another 5% had PhDs (read, over 90% of them were educated) I wonder how dumb educated people really are.
In case you're not one of the brightest educated people out there... Anything you put on the Internet is 10 times worse than if you call up the News Sentinal and place it in a classified ad. At least with an ad, it has the potential to go away and most people won't read it. If you post it to the internet it is permanent (think alltheweb) and it can be recalled with a few quick key strokes by anyone anywhere anytime. (Let that sink in for a minute as you write your blogs for this class!)
Now of course you would have to use your name (55% of the respondants used their real name in their blog postings) and have a fairly uncommon name / background association. What I mean is if you post your name and your occupation and your education (think Myspace, Facebook, Classmates.com) you're going to be easier to identify than writing as Joe Smith.
Unfortunantly, you can't control what other people post about you either, so you might want to be prepared for that. I'll post my results in another post so this one isn't too long.
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1. Yes
ReplyDelete1.a 2 weeks ago
1.b 2-3 times a year
2.a 10
2.b 34,596
3. That I have a lot of grad school work showing up. Not surprising that work would show up, but interesting which pdfs showed up first and from which class.
4. Nah, unless I was mistaken for one of the other Jeff Beard's that are out there.
Nice post, and some interesting information. I always try to drive home to my students that they need to be cautious what they post on the Internet as future employers can find it.
1. Have you ever "googled" yourself? -- Yes
ReplyDelete1a. If so, when is the last time you did so? -2 months ago
1b. How often do you "google" yourself? about every 6 months
2. Google yourself now...
2a. How many results are you? 41
2b. How many are not you? 43
3. What is the most interesting thing about you that you discovered? -- for the first time there is another person out there with the same name that has pics etc .. much younger.
4. If an employer, potential employer, or educational institution that you applied to (such as UT) decided to "google" you as part of the application process, would you be in trouble? Maybe, there is nothing of mine that would be objectionable but the other person I found has some "interesting" web presence.
Interesting post. L
1. Have you ever "googled" yourself? Yes
ReplyDelete1a. 6 months or so ago.
1b. 1-2 times per year.
2. Google yourself now... MAKE SURE YOU PUT YOUR NAME IN QUOTES
2a. If I google my first and last name in quotes - 88,200 results. Yikes! If I add in my middle/maiden name, I get only 1 result: my name on a list of ALA membership.
2b. How many are not you? Um... almost all of them. The 5th link down on the first page us a LinkedIn profile that I thought was me, but it was a Senior Vice President at Wachovia Bank.
3. What is the most interesting thing about you that you discovered? I discovered (again) that I apparently have a very common name. The number of links was huge, at least in part, thanks to the character from the I Spy television show and movie. It was hard to see the advertisements for that movie with Eddie Murphy going around saying my name over and over! There was also a singer/songwriter with my name, as well as an artist.
4. If an employer, potential employer, or educational institution that you applied to (such as UT) decided to "google" you as part of the application process, would you be in trouble? Quite possibly, given the sheer number of people who share my name. The likelihood that at least one of them has something improper on the web is kind of high. However, I personally don't know of anything on the web that could harm me, and I certainly didn't find anything in my search.
I just google using my name and found 2 results on Facebook, one is from the University of Oklahoma. But I haven't register on Facebook yet.
ReplyDeleteI googled my name 2 or 3 times in the past but did not expect much because I believe that if I have many stories, that must be written in Chinese, which could not be found in google.
About Internet privacy I read from Daily Beacon last year that a guy came to UT to give out a speech about the similar topic, warning students not to put pictures which would reveal their true identities, especially those "nasty pictures".
He demonstrated that he had pull out at least 50 pictures uploaded by UT students about how they had fun after drunk. This guy admitted that sometimes companies would hire people who provide such service to make a background check on employees. He commented that "You don't want your company see these pictures".