The Internet and the Death of Privacy

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by puregrrl

I am a therapist, like DapperButch. Because of that and my professional license being of public record, a lot of my information is available when you Google me. I have had past clients, both adult and child, try to get me to friend them (get me to look them up and friend them) on Facebook because they have tried and they can't find me (which I tell them no and explain why). I have the highest privacy settings on Facebook so that you can only see my picture and any of my personal information if you are my friend. The only picture I have on here anymore is the one in my profile, which you can only see if you are a member.

I have had a lot of friends make fun of me because of my "excessive" need for privacy. I have all of my mail (bills, etc) sent to a PO Box. Occasionally I give out my address for packages to be sent to my apartment but that is it. The only thing my physical address is listed on is my electric/gas and cable bill (because it has to be to get service but they still has PO Box as mailing address) and my driver's license. I do not even have my physical address listed with my employer. I've been like this since the late 90s.

As gar as Googling myself, yes, I have done it. I wanted to know what out there is about me. One of the "interesting" things I have found is a woman, with my same name, in the same general area where I grew up, was busted for prostitution. So, people from my past could think it was me as my last name is not common.

As a retired psychotherapist, I so understand this! Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries! Since my last clinical license that last practiced under was a combination of my LTR patner's and mine, I don't worry so much. No one here or on any social site I am on knows this. I never changed them. Close to retireing, so I didn't feel the need to.

The internet has brought so many great things- but as someone that has been the victim of computer and identity theft and fraud- it can be a double sided sword. Unfortunately, there are people out there with criminal intentions.

I don't list an address in the phone book and use my first and middle initials.

Sometimes I am amazed at people that work in publically funded professions are not more careful with this stuff. These days, I wouldn't trust that my job was safe even if I had a union to go to. Employers can do a lot that we have no way of knowing about. Finding medical, including mental health records has become far too easy in the age of the home computer- even with very strict laws to prevent this. Things that are a matter of public record are bad enough. I can't stand what real estate people can find out about people, for example.

[Medusa]

My old boss tried to friend me on Facebook last year. Needless to say, it was awkward when I had to explain to him that I prefer to keep my work life and personal life separate.

[Venus007]

I am doubly fortunate that my name is extremely common and that there is someone rather famous that shares my name. I enjoy being a needle in a hay stack. I believe that is the new hiding to be invisible in plain sight.

I have been involved with the internet since somewhere in the mid 80s, (remember Compu-Serve), and I feel relatively safe online. It is like living in a bad neighborhood, there are just some things you have to pay attention to, some things you shouldn't do and other things that are just fine, I am very careful to keep the disparate parts of my life, well, disparate. I am aware of my public image and the requirement of having a truly public image and a more covert public image as well as my true personal life. My true personal life is shielded online due to my many millions of name sakes.

[Gayla]

In real life, I'm all over the Internet. My name is rather unique and most all of the google results for my name are actually me.

The others are a school teacher on the east coast who is the only other person I've found that shares my first and last name. (We also share a rewards club membership at Best Buy because every time one of us tries to get a new one, they say we already have one. We keep in touch via email and it's one of the oddest online friendships I've ever made online.)

I do google myself often and spend a fair bit of time on a regular basis working on my SEO. Because so much of my business depends on the Internet, I do have to be more careful these days about what I do online using my real name. In the past, I haven't worried too much about it and there was a point where googling (well, yahooing back then) my name showed everything from leather community stuff to work stuff. I've gotten most of it cleaned up but after the first 3 or 4 pages there is some non real estate stuff that still shows up. For most of the social stuff I do, I've either set things to the highest privacy levels so they don't show up in search results or I've completely changed the names that I use. Since I expect, and often request, that my clients google me at some point, I have to make sure that they only see what I want them to see.

I participate in some "high risk" activities online. Primarily this is related to gaming so I'm on constant alert for everything from viruses to keyloggers and other types of malware. I probably worry more about this than anything else when it comes to the stuff I do online. I would be very sad if my little pink haired gnome got hacked!

[Diva]

Evidently, I'm an attorney in Fayetteville who is also an interior designer...and I guess I perform meditative music on Pandora, too.



(Thankfully, I do not use my full legal name in my life!)

[JAGG]

Originally Posted by Diva

Evidently, I'm an attorney in Fayetteville who is also an interior designer...and I guess I perform meditative music on Pandora, too.



(Thankfully, I do not use my full legal name in my life!)

hahahahah The secret life of Diva. Who knew? If you get a speeding ticket in Fayetteville you know who to call now!

Apparently I died in like 1868 . Which as it turns out was a great thing if you ask me. The best thing that ever happened to me. I had what seems to be a miserable nightmare of a life. I was married to some guy think his name was tom and I had like 5 kids too . Holy shit! Then I showed up again in 1898, I guess I just never learn, because I made the same damn mistakes again, married some guy and had a nightmare life with 3 kids and at 71 yrs old I admitted my maiden name was Hooker to some newspaper.Finally kicked the bucket in 1908. Holy crap am I'm glad that is over with. hahahahahahahahahahahahaha I'm never looking back . No wonder I'm not one to live in the past. hahahaha Singing>>>> Blue skys shing on me, nothing but blue eyes do I see. Things are much better now, in case you were wondering.

[SecretAgentMa'am]

I'm completely baffled by the whole concept of people feeling "unsafe" because they know someone looked at their public profile. If you're worried about a stalker, would you prefer that they be able to closely monitor your profile in complete anonymity? I suppose some people just can't stand not having some drama going on all the time.

I recently deleted my Facebook account because I was no longer willing to deal with their privacy issues. I read a few articles about the new profile pages they're rolling out soon, and I decided to jump ship before that happened. If anyone isn't aware, Facebook is about to start encouraging users to enter their medical histories (and will be using your status updates to update your profile information as well), which FB will then sell, mostly to insurance companies. If someone is making a lot of money running a website that you're using for free, it's because you're the product, not the consumer. I've switched over to Google+, which certainly isn't perfect but is light years better than FB.

If you Google my legal name, all you'll find is some really bad Forever Knight fanfiction I wrote when I was a teenager. I haven't used my legal name for anything but work, school, banking, and the DMV for at least 15 years. If you know the name I use online, you can find a bit of information about me, but nothing damning.