With a first name like Michael, I immediately noticed that when I searched for myself in Google, it was not easy at all finding information that actually pertained to me. The name Beyer is also a pretty common German last name, so that provided a large amount of results as well. When I searched my name, the 5th page on the list was my Facebook profile, of which I allow everyone access to see it. Other than that one page, I had zero success finding any other articles or websites that pertained to me. I was surprised to see that I could not find any articles or rosters for sports teams or clubs that I was involved in in high school. I did find a person named Sean Michael Beyer, which I thought was very amusing considering that my brother's name is Sean. When I performed a Google images search of my name I was not able to find any pictures that could be associated with me.
Everyone always talks about privacy being an issue on the internet, and this talk of Googling yourself surely is a topic of interest. When I Googled myself, I do not believe any information that could maybe harm me was available, considering I do not have that much personal information on my Facebook page. On the other hand, some people put their home phone numbers, addresses, and other sorts of personal information on their pages that could be used by internet predators of any sort. I think the risks of being search-engine-available really depend on who you are and who would potentially be out to get you, not just the the presence of your name on the search engine. Advantages of appearing in a search engine could be range from potential employers finding facts about you that please them, to friends being able to find your cell phone number on the internet when they had forgotten to put it in your phone. Basically, access to any information that would help other people satisfy their needs with good intention.
Mike, make sure to take your limited googability for granted. I can speak for myself, as well as most of the entire class, that we are much more googable than you, and it is something that bothers us. While your facebook page showed up on page five, mine showed up on page 1. While I have a facebook for purposes of connecting to people, it is not something that I want connected to the entire world. I do find it a little odd that no links appeared for sports teams that you played on because I found plenty of those for me.
ReplyDeleteI think you made a lot of very good valid points in this post. A lot of people wrote about how scary it is that people can so easily access information about them. You, however, mentioned that your Facebook page came up, but didn't have much personal information on it. Maybe some people could reevaluate their fears associated with google searches simply by making their personal pages less revealing, or even changing the privacy settings. I think we often forget how accessible the things we post truly are.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that for some people, how googleable they are depends on how accessible they made their information. However, for some people such as celebrities, athletes, and business owners, information disclosure is hard to avoid. Regarding the advantages you listed, it is true that if you only had beneficial information on the internet it could help you when an employer searches your name; however, it is hard to control what information is out there about you, and it could be easy for the slightest incriminating picture or quote to make an employer discard your application. Furthermore, if a friend lost your phone number, he could ask another friend or contact you by some other means. I personally would not like for my phone number to be a free for all on the internet.
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