<p>I will not be surprised to see the day when the erosion of privacy reaches a point that our fake names on CC, Yahoo, etc get unmasked and we all find out who everyone really is.</p>
<p>Names, addresses, phone numbers, SSNs, heights, weights and political affiliations pop up for me on CC already. Doesn’t that happen with everyone?</p>
<p>^^^ Ha,ha! Not weight! :(</p>
<p>D’s good college girlfriend, two years older than herself, moved to NYC after graduation. Several months later, the girl began to describe to her Facebook friends (with very appropriate language, judgment etc.) how she had a met an attractive young man, naming his alma mater and unusual job. My D figured it out: she was reading about her own big brother! In that huge city! Not wanting to jinx the relationship, she stayed silent to both of them on it. Anyway, two years later and all those relationships are still flourishing.</p>
<p>I realize this is different than the OP’s situation. It was Facebook, not google; and all the details written online were plenty modest. They were college graduates who knew not to be foolish online. </p>
<p>If something immodest were published by a girl about my S, I’d go Curmudgeon’s approach and tip S off. In the final round, you need to be loyal to S and let him protect his reputation, especially if the girl might publish more in the next installments!
Just be sure to let S know you’re not offended by anything you read (lie, if you must) so he can focus on his OWN opinion about what she wrote, not your embarrassment.</p>
<p>You can certainly tell him you discovered this by googling him. It’s flattering, really, to google someone. I track my cousin’s professional papers, etc. this way. Tell him you just do this to keep up with everyone in the family you admire, including him. And woops, you found something he needs to double-check. Just send the link and add NO thoughts about the link. Curm is even more subtle, so better yet.</p>
<p>I google my kids every six months or so, just out of curiousity. If it were my son, I would probably email him that I’d googled his name (along with other names) and this is what popped up. I’d say I didn’t mean to pry into anything personal and just wanted him to know the conversation is available for the public to see. He’ll probably put his myspace or whatever site on “private” immediately (or ask the girl to do so). I wouldn’t be embarrassed to admit to googling family members at all. It’s not the same as looking in diary or eavesdropping.</p>
<p>Thank you all! I’m going to copy Cur’s words almost exactly. "“Hey, kid. I was googling your name to see what the world was saying about you and I found this personal crap. You better watch yourself. There are wierdos in your woods. Still no rumors about you from the Nobel folks. Oh well. Maybe next time.” Kid will get it. (and yes, its me, not burying my head in the sand anymore…).</p>
<p>
Way to step up to the plate , oaklandmom. Chutzpah looks good on you. ;)</p>
<p>I advised DS1 to google himself as he was working on his activities resume, so he could see what might pop up if a college admissions officer poked around. Happily, there were things about activities he’s participated in (that provide easy confirmation of his involvement), a couple of things about awards, and nothing terribly embarrassing. He kept his Xanga (when he had one) very anonymous. Never used his real name anywhere.</p>
<p>The biggest Google surprise was that I found a draft of the abstract for DS’s huge project – he was NOT a happy camper. Beware of what you save online with GoogleDocs!! </p>
<p>I’ve checked both kids, with their knowledge, but do so at the same time I’m googling myself or DH. I think of it as an online credit check of sorts – just making sure there’s no monkey business out there!</p>
<p>Sometimes DS will share with me something he’s posted on his blog and I might suggest “do you really want to say that in a public forum?” or “If you’re trying to maintain your anonymity, do you think this might be TMI?” Usually he agrees and will change it. There are plenty of examples of friends sharing WAY too much info online and that generates interesting conversations, so if I actually comment on something he’s shared, he takes it seriously.</p>
<p>Actually this is getting kind of worrisome now. Most college kids use G-mail and G-chat. So are all their private chats “diggable”.</p>
<p>I googled my kids and discovered that my son has the same name as a classic car hobbyist and my daughter has the same name as a documentary filmmaker. You would have to search through many pages of references to these and other people before running across anything that mentions my actual kids (although there are online mentions of both of them).</p>
<p>My husband and I could have done a better job in selecting their names.</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you Google me by my real name, you’ll find me right away. Oh, dear.</p>
<p>My mom has googled me, my brother and my sister multiple times. Surprisingly, there’s a girl at Elmhurst college with my exact name (my first name is spelled differently and we always thought our last name was REALLY unique …apparently not). I don’t consider it “snooping”, because I have nothing to hide. My mom is one of my friends on MySpace, so she can see that anyway. It does make me a little extra cautious of what I post, but that might be a good thing.</p>
<p>I was very proud when I googled one of my children and his articles and REVIEWS of HIS articles popped up. Proud mama.Although the criticisms of his articles, that I could do without.</p>
<p>Better than when I google my name and come up with a number of posts on genealogy forums!</p>
<p>I google my kid to see if he has a criminal record yet. :)</p>
<p>LOL Not good. Just wait for a phone call for that one. Anyway, Mom Of Wild Child…what is your wild child up to these days? Or has he lost his wild ways?!TOOOOOOOO much studying!</p>
<p>I googled my daughter, and it turns out a local university used her and a nice picture of her in a lab for an article about their summer science programs. A nice addition to her college resume that otherwise I would have never known about…</p>
<p>My first name is a common first AND last name, and my last name is also a common household appliance. Any recruiters searching for me will turn up adult film stars, NASCAR drivers, cartoon characters, and washed-up actors. I waded through 15 pages after several advanced searches and found absolutely nothing on me. Resplendent.</p>
<p>Chocoholic,
I have never seen any of my kids’ Google chats or emails online. It was just one thing on DS’s Google Pages (which is different from Google Docs, he tells me). Not to worry!</p>
<p>Sorry if this is straying off topic, but we just got back to our hotel after dinner with D1 and two of her friends and their parents… all girls are seniors at college. I think this topic is important.</p>
<p>One of D’s friends said she ‘heard’ that some companies are buying college e-mail addresses so they can access facebooks of students they’re considering hiring. She said she heard that they can even access information about the kids without being part of their ‘private’ group of friends.</p>
<p>We were speculating (she also had heard this) that some bigger corporations are paying facebook off to get access to sites they shouldn’t. Of course we all know this is illegal (I’m assuming)… a breach of privacy.</p>
<p>Since the kids are seniors and interviewing for jobs, they are a bit spooked as they all assumed their ‘friends only’ sites were safe. I think they are particularly concerned about photos (I learned what a keg stand is tonight!).</p>
<p>However, they also mentioned if anyone else puts up incriminating pictures of you, you can request facebook to remove it, so that doesn’t necessarily go along with them being so liberal with making these sites accessible to those who shouldn’t have it.</p>
<p>Funny comment by D, though, “I’ll bet there’s not a CEO of a major corporation out there today who did not do a funnel or keg stand while they were in college.” (well, that may be exaggerating, but probably not too far from the truth.)</p>
<p>Pretty recently, Facebook changed its policies and Facebook profiles can now be uncovered on Google searches. You can go into your profile preferences and change them so your profile does not come up on searches – but you have to go and make that change. </p>
<p>I’ve also heard of companies using .edu emails to check up on applicants. I’ve heard that they “friend” you and most college students automatically friend back. The message here is only friend back someone that you know, and not a stranger.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/daniel_rubin/20071015_Daniel_Rubin___The_students__Ask_Grandpa.html[/url]”>http://www.philly.com/inquirer/columnists/daniel_rubin/20071015_Daniel_Rubin___The_students__Ask_Grandpa.html</a></p>
<p>This is a really cute column from today’s Philadelphia Inquirer which is very relevant to this topic !</p>