These dangers that can come with google are definitely a problem. How safe is it for any person in the world to be able to find specific information about you? What if you listed your address or phone number somewhere on the Internet that was only intended to be seen by certain people? It is not safe for people you do not know to also be able to access this information as well. Sure, google might provide ways to promote yourself and it could be very useful to get yourself out there for a certain job or opportunity, but the dangers may outweigh this opportunity. We are learning more and more that any piece of information put on the Internet can be found with a simple search and it is important to realize this before posting any material.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Opportunity or Risk?
When putting my name into google I am actually more googable than I would have first thought. There are 6 billion people in the world, how many results can come up by putting in one specific name? Well, although I am not famous my name is definitely not very common. So when searching for Reed Marcus many of the articles and images that come up are in fact about myself. News articles from high school sports as well as images from facebook were the most common hits. Honestly, if you asked me about five years ago, how googable I would like to be, I would have told you it would be awesome to have your name come up on the Internet. In this day in age however, where the Internet basically runs society its simply not that "cool" anymore. Specific searches can bring up just about anything about anyone that I have realized that it could be somewhat dangerous and a big security issue.
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I completely agree with the dangers of being googleable that you wrote about. I also once would have thought it was really cool to be searchable on the internet. However, now I know how dangerous it really is. When I looked up my name, I found things that I didn't want to share with just anyone in the entire world. It's quite scary to think about what could happen.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with you about how scary it is to know how easy it is to find out information about someone. It is interesting that sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Blogger all allow for me to come up on Google's search results. Do they do this purposely or does Google do it without their knowledge? When I make an account on these websites, I did not think about the possible implications this could have on my search results should someone actually type "Adam Kornbluh" into Google. I do now though. That is for sure.
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