Alex's response to Ian's meta-post got me thinking about whether, and how, I should start reducing my social media presence. I feel like as we go on through this course, we students are going to be doing a lot of "vanity searches," a.k.a. googling ourselves. Some of us will feel better than others after such a search.
For instance, my googling showed me that I am the only Drew Bredeson in the US, and apparently on the internet at all. There are a couple Andrew Bredesons, but when it comes to Drews, I'm it. That makes me think that I'll be really easy to find, regardless of my privacy settings. People I know, and people I don't know, will find it pretty easy to find information on me.
On the other hand, I went high school with three Andrew Johnsons. Googling that name isn't going to get you anywhere, because even in Minnesota there are hundreds, if not thousands of Andrew Johnsons. Regardless of their privacy settings, their data is going to be much harder to find than mine. And anything you DO find on an Andrew Johnson is going to come with the question of whether this is the right 27-year-old Andrew Johnson of the hundreds.
As it gets harder and harder to obscure one's online presence, the best defense might be obscurity through super-common names.
You should try Googling yourself from a browser you don't use. Most search engines tailor your results. You can get substantially different results if the search engine has no prior use data.
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ReplyDeleteOut of curiosity, I searched Drew's name on Google, and most of the results were unambiguously about this Drew Bredeson. Perhaps that is also a function of Google reading my IP address, seeing I'm searching from Minnesota, and tailoring the results to Minnesota Drew Bredesons.
ReplyDeleteStill, I agree with your theory Drew. I bet it's even easier to obscure your online presence (all other things being equal) in some countries like China, where 85% of its 1.28 billion people share only 100 surnames. Contrast that with the U.S., where 89.8% of its 314 million people share 151,000 surnames.
[I reposted this comment once I figured out how to add links.]
It definitely seems that Drew has the spotlight more than most of us. His LinkedIn shoots right to the top in my search (with one of the Andrews coming in second). Meanwhile, I get motocross if I search for Will and a member of the Harvard biomedical faculty if I search for William. I don't show up on the first page for either search. So I guess my name does benefit me when it comes to "safe Googling."
ReplyDeleteThat anonymity boost definitely reduces if the Googler knows anything about my history. Adding "KCTS" or "Evergreen" or "Wikimedia" to the end of my name puts information about me on the first page. If you switch to image search, it often makes my picture the very first result. But to your point, none of those searches provide as much information as a simple search for "Drew Bredeson."
I guess it's just unlucky for me that my parents are from two different ethnic backgrounds resulting in an incredibly rare(unique?) combination of my rather unusual first and last names!
ReplyDeleteAnd apparently I kinda lucked out since my last name is fairly common in Germany, Korea, and China (alongside Han as a Romanization of 한 or 韩/韓). I never really thought about that as a "privacy" safeguard before... But maybe there's something to that.
ReplyDeleteAs someone with an incredibly common full name (there are 3 others at UMN alone, and well over 500 on facebook last I checked), it's a mixed blessing. Upside: I was essentially un-googleable until I joined LinkedIn, which gave me a sense of anonymity. Downside: there's always the possibility of being associated with the embarassing things my name-dopplegangers post on Twitter.
ReplyDeleteEmily, a very common name might be a privacy risk in its own right. I personally have emailed the wrong Emily Marshall when I meant to contact you with specific (though not sensitive) information about our journal's operations. This kind of mistaken communication certainly might include private information that the intended Emily Marshall would prefer not to have broadcast to everyone with the same name.
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