Why You Need to Google Yourself

Daniel J. Solove, of Concurring Opinions, has been following and commenting on an interaction between a law professor and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia about internet privacy laws.

Basically Scalia is against furthering the government’s role in regulating the free exchange of ideas online. So, to challenge that idea, the law professor, Professor Joel Reidenberg of Fordham University, decided to challenge that by making Justice Scalia this semester’s object lesson in his course on Information Privacy Law. Their assignment was to dig up every bit of personal information they could locate online about Scalia (and his family) online, and then show Justice Scalia what they had found, to see how the Supreme Court Justice would respond when he saw all of the details of his and his family’s life together in one dossier that is online, (but not yet public).

Scalia responded by explaining to the professor and his class that just because something is legal to do doesn’t make it a good idea (paraphrase). To read the details of this interaction, visit Concurring Opinions, and follow the links provided there.

This brings us to an important question, however. What if someone wanted to just see what information they could dig up about you online…What would they find? Do you know? You might be surprised. For the most part, everything that you’ve ever done on the internet is public knowledge, and most of it probably isn’t interesting to anyone but yourself – or is it?

A good way to find out is to Google yourself. (Just go to Google.com, and search for your current name, any previous names, and any user ID’s or profile names that you have used. It might be a good idea to check on your family members, as well. Be sure to check using the “web,” “images,” and “videos” tabs at the top of your browser.) Also, check other search engines, especially 123People.com, and Dogpile.com.

What if you don’t like what you’re seeing?

• In some cases, you can request the site owners to take down the material. They may or may not comply, since they are not obligated to do so under the law, if the information is true. If it is not true, you may be able to get legal help in having it removed, particularly if the site the information is on is a for-profit site.
• Remember that most of the search engines other than Google order their search results with the most recent information appearing first in the results. So, you can proactively use social networking and other internet activity such as blogging and book reviews to help push that older, undesirable information to the “back” of the search engine results.

For more resources on Ft. Hard Knox, see:

• Online Profile Management, and “TMI”
• What Links Rank Highest on my Online Profile?
• Guide for Bloggers and Non-Profit Organizations About Writing With Libel in Mind
• Why Page Rank is Important
• Stop Big Brother from Snooping on You, Online

(Hat-Tip: TechDirt)