Google Destroying Whatever Privacy You Thought You Had
from the and-like-that,-he's-gone dept
There's a great part in the book High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby, where he talks about how exciting it was to meet people (mainly women) after going away to school. When you were a kid, everyone knew your past, your embarassing moments and other such things you want to forget. But, once you left that world, you could be anyone you wanted to be with any past. That might be changing. The NY Times (in their evil registration required way) has an article all about the ways in which Google has removed your last chance at anonymity. Your silly past (or, at least, the online parts of it) are there for anyone to dredge up and embarass you with. This also leads to various misconceptions and wrongfully attributed actions. Some people are even desperately wishing they had a more common name, with which to disappear into the data stream. Overall, though, I think the fear is overblown. If you did something online, you did it publicly, and there's really no reason to be upset when Google finds it.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
No Subject Given
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
people with common names...
:D
-mhh5
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
you end up in google even if you don t do things o
thanks gawd (contrary to what I told EU bureacrats) company isn t successful therefore my name isn t well positioned in google search, but it kinda annoys me anyhow
[ link to this | view in chronology ]