(PC World contributor Scott Nichols looked into a study that says people are increasingly turning to Google to find out about themselves. Here is what he found.)
Have you Googled yourself lately? According to a survey (PDF) by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, there is a good chance you have.
The survey, released Sunday, found that 47 percent of Internet users have searched for themselves through Google - up from 22 percent in 2002. Only 3 percent of those searching for themselves on Google claim to do it on a regular basis, with 22 percent claiming to search for themselves "every once in a while." A majority of 74 percent said they have searched for themselves once or twice.
Another interesting tidbit from the Pew survey is 53 percent of Internet users have Googled someone else?s name. Reasons include reconnecting with past friends (36 percent), searching about a coworker (19 percent) or a job applicant (11 percent), or even finding information about someone they are dating (9 percent).
Not included in the survey is the statistic that approximately 100 percent of those who read about the survey will Google their own name just to see what all the fuss is about. I of course did, and was both disappointed and relieved to find no information about myself.
While it's nice to know Google gawkers can't pull up anything on me if they tried, there's a strange emptiness to not having a digital footprint.
Perhaps I shouldn't care what people find out about me on Google. Apparently people don't worry about it.
The Pew survey found that 60 percent of Internet users are not concerned with how much information is available online about them. A similar number of online adults (61 percent) claimed not to limit the amount of personal information they reveal online, while only 38 percent claimed to have taken extra precautions to limit that information.
There are people who intentionally manipulate information about themselves on the web, for this very reason (Wikipedia founder has been known to erase info about his sketchy past) But the younger generation seems to care less about their online appearance, which begs the question-
does anyone care about privacy anymore?
>>does anyone care about privacy anymore?<<
That's a good question -- and since I just signed-in to this site using a temporary email address and a randomly-generated password, maybe I'm not the best one to answer. ;)
There's an important distinction to make between willingly giving up certain aspects of privacy for convenience, or "fame", or whatever we decide is worthwhile; and the far-more insidious situation in which we have no choice in the matter -- such as when we're the subject of wire-taps or other types of uninvited monitoring. It's important to remember that citing peoples' willingness to give up some aspects of their privacy doesn't mean that /all/ privacy isn't important anymore.
sh(A)ne
Ahh - but it's fun to see where you are in the world's eyes, even if it can be a little vain.
(mypartofcolorado dot blogspot dot com)
...And oops, this was my first ever comment for PC World, and it appeared below the wrong story! NOW it's attached to the right story!!
That at times can be a scary thing, if an ex was trying to look you up , that you have been trying to dodge for years....
http://www.Drewryonline.net
What is privacy in a day and age where being noticed and having attention on you is the goal? It's what the media and people are constantly telling us to do - get noticed.
It's not all of the younger generation though, as I am one of these. It's more of insecurity and the need to be noticed, given constant attention and be liked that has caused the neglecting of personal privacy. It?s greatly disappointing, really.
If your Internet persona is sufficiently unusual, you may want to create a Google Alert for it. My nom de web (Izzy Cohen) was also the name of (1) the owner of Giant Foods, (2) a bagel mogul, and (3) Sgt. Izzy Cohen, a World War II comic strip character.
Googling for + "Izzy Cohen" elicits comments on topics I write about, such as anthropomorphic maps, idioms formed by the transliteration of foreign words/phrases, and the tendency for semantically identical concepts to be joined as homonyms across languages.
Anthropomorphic maps were generated by configuring the body of a god or goddess over the area to be mapped. The name of each part of that body became the name of the area or feature under that part. This produced a scale 1:1 map-without-paper on which each placename automatically indicated its approximate location and direction with respect to every other place on the same map whose name was produced in this way.
Izzy
http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/BPMaps/