Ego Searching for Privacy Protection

Posted by Rakesh under FYI

In 2007, the Pew Internet research team had published a survey saying less than fifty percent of the web users have ever performed an “ego search,” or googling of ourselves, using some other search engine.

More people are googling themselves — and many of us are checking out their friends, co-workers and romantic interests, too.

In the survey, the Pew Internet said approximately 50 percent of adult Internet users have looked for information about themselves through Google or another search engine.

That is more than twice the users who did in 2002, but Pew research specialist was surprised the growth wasn’t higher.

“Yes it’s approximately doubled, but it’s still the case that there’s a big chunk of Internet users who have never done this simple act of googling their name. Certainly it shows that internet user awareness has increased.

What if other people Google you? Are you concerned what someone might find out about you by performing a routine search? What if that person was a prospective employer? Or a business partner?

For anyone concerned with their online privacy, it is important to perform ego searches regularly for not only your own name, but for your e-mail address, your home address, etc.

In most cases, we tend to publish our own information on the Internet. We might not have intended to post our personal information in a public forum, but sometimes leaks of information happen or we were careless when responding to a blog posting or someone’s guestbook page.

Search your name: Unless your name is extremely common, like Michael Smith, John Smith or Martin, it is not that difficult to retrieve your name from an Internet search — depending on what search tools you use and how careful you were to keep your name off the Internet.

If you are a homeowner, chances are your name is in at least one publicly searchable database. And if you signed up for LinkedIn, Facebook or even Twiter, you likely used your real name when registering, and that information is searchable too.

To search, begin with Google since it is the most ubiquitous, and use quotes around your name. You may want to narrow the search by including your state, territory or hometown, depending on how common your name may be.

Search for your e-mail address. This is an often-overlooked ego search. Check Google for Web postings, but don’t forget to check newsgroups too. If someone is trying to track you down online and they know your email address (for instance, off of your resume), they can try to use that information to learn more about your identity by seeing what else you have written online or emailed to public forums.

To completely avoid tying your real identity to online accounts, you should strictly use fabricated names and accounts that won’t be traced back to you.

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