Oh! Oh! So, i’ve been bitching about the problems with Google for quite some time, the concerns about privacy, how it collapses contexts, what that means, etc. And every time i say something about that, people remind me that Google is a fabulous company (which i’m actually certain it is) and that everyone is speaking to the public so get over it. But, it’s not that simple. People aren’t speaking to the public like they do in the physical world. The ability to archive, search, etc. collapses contexts and leaves people fundamentally vulnerable.

It made me realize that people aren’t aware of the underlying differences between the physical and the digital. And while my initial flip-out was quite incoherent, i’m starting to have a better grasp of how to address this, how to break it down and discuss the issues in terms of context, faceting of identity and presentation.

And i’m glad to hear that i’m not the only one who thinks that this is a problem that must be addressed! And there’s even a metafilter discussion going on!

[And of course, more on /., which is a quick reminder that /. geeks don’t get social issues or context… too much libertarianism, not enough reality and way too little self-monitoring]

Trying to Elude The Google Grasp
New York Times; New York, N.Y.; Jul 25, 2002; Jennifer 8. Lee;

Copyright New York Times Company Jul 25, 2002

THE Internet has reminded Camberley Crick that there are disadvantages to having a distinctive name.

In June, Ms. Crick, 24, who works part time as a computer tutor, went to a Manhattan apartment to help a 40-something man learn Windows XP.

After their session, the man pulled out a half-inch stack of printouts of Web pages he said he had found by typing Ms. Crick’s name into Google, the popular search engine.

“You’ve been a busy bee,” she says he joked. Among the things he had found were her family Web site, a computer game she had designed for a freshman college class, a program from a concert she had performed in and a short story she wrote in elementary school called “Timmy the Turtle.”

“He seemed to know an awful lot about me,” Ms. Crick said, including the names of her siblings. “In the back of my mind, I was thinking I should leave soon.”

When she got home, she immediately removed some information from the family Web site, including the turtle story, which her father had posted in 1995, “when the Web was more innocent,” she said. But then she discovered that a copy of the story remains available through Google’s database of archived Web pages. “You can’t remove pieces of yourself from the Web,” Ms. Crick said.

The gradual erosion of personal privacy is hardly a new trend. For years, privacy advocates have been spinning cautionary tales about the perils of living in the electronic age.

But it used to be that only government agencies and businesses had the resources and manpower to track personal information. Today, the combined power of the Internet, search engines and archival databases can enable almost anyone to find information about almost anyone else, possibly to satiate a passing curiosity.

As a result, people like Ms. Crick are trying to reduce their electronic presence — and discovering that it is not as simple as it would seem. The Internet, which was supposed to usher in an era of limitless information, is leading some people to restrict the information that they make available about themselves.

“Now it’s much more common to look up people’s personal information on the Web,” Ms. Crick said. “You have to think what you want people to know about you and not know about you.”

These days, people are seeing their privacy punctured in intimate ways as their personal, professional and online identities become transparent to one another. Twenty-somethings are going to search engines to check out people they meet at parties. Neighbors are profiling neighbors. Amateur genealogists are researching distant family members. Workers are screening co-workers.

In other words, it is becoming more difficult to keep one’s past hidden, or even to reinvent oneself in the American tradition. “The net result is going to be a return to the village, where everyone knew everyone else,” said David Brin, author of a book called “The Transparent Society” (Perseus, 1998). “The anonymity of urban life will be seen as a temporary and rather weird thing.”

Some believe that this loss of anonymity could be dangerous for those who prefer to remain hidden, like victims of domestic violence.

“If you are living in a new town trying to be hidden, it’s pretty easy to find you now between Google and online government records,” said Cindy Southworth, who develops technology education programs for victims of domestic violence. “Many public entities are putting everything on the Web without thinking through the ramifications of those actions.”

Of course, a lot of personal information that can be found on the Internet is already in the open, having been printed in newspapers, school newsletters, yearbooks and the like. In addition, the government records that are moving online — tax assessments, court documents, voter registration — are already public.

But much of that kind of information used to be protected by “practical obscurity”: barriers arising from the time and inconvenience involved in collecting the information. Now those barriers are falling as old online-discussion postings, wedding registries and photos from school performances are becoming centralized in a searchable form on the Internet.

“Google and its siblings are creating a whole that is much greater than the sum of the parts,” said Jonathan Zittrain, director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. “Many people assume they are a needle in a haystack, simply a face in the crowd. But the minute someone takes an interest in you, the search tool is what allows the rest of the crowd to dissolve.”

As a result, people are considering how to live their lives knowing that the details might be captured by a big magnifying glass in the sky.

“Anonymity used to give us a cushion against small mistakes,” Mr. Brin said. “Now we’ll have to live our lives as if any one thing might appear on page 27 in two years’ time.”

Waqaas Fahmawi, 25, used to sign petitions freely when he was in college. “In the past you would physically sign a petition and could confidently know that it would disappear into oblivion,” said Mr. Fahmawi, a Palestinian-American who works as an economist for the Commerce Department.

But after he discovered that his signatures from his college years had been archived on the Internet, he became reluctant to sign petitions for fear that potential employers would hold his political views again him.

He feels stifled in his political expression. “The fact I have to think about this,” he said, “really does show we live in a system of thought control.”

David Holtzman, editor in chief of GlobalPOV, a privacy Web site, said that the notion of privacy was “undergoing a generational shift.” Those in their late 20’s and 30’s are going to feel the brunt of the transition, he said, because they grew up with more traditional concepts of privacy even as the details of their lives were being captured electronically.

“It almost gives you a good reason to name your kid something bland,” Mr. Holtzman said. “You are doing them a good favor by doing that.”

Indeed, a generic name is what Beth Roberts, 29, was seeking when she changed back from her married name, Werbick, after a divorce. A Google search on “Beth Werbick” returns results only about her. But a search for “Beth Roberts” returns thousands upon thousands of Web pages. “I would have plausible deniability if someone wanted to attribute something to me,” said Ms. Roberts, who lives in Austin, Tex.

Mr. Fahmawi, the economist, said he envied the ability to be a name in the crowd. “If I had a more generic name, I’d sign petitions with impunity,” he said.

But those who have become more conscious of their Internet presence can find that it is almost impossible to assert control over the medium — something that copyright holders discovered long ago.

The debate over privacy is particularly fervent in the field of online genealogy, where databases and family trees are copied freely, with or without the consent of the living individuals.

Jerome Smith, who runs a genealogical Web site, recently removed some names at the request of a man who did not want his children’s information on the Web. But Mr. Smith noted the information itself had been copied from a larger public database. “Once you put it out there, it’s out there,” said Mr. Smith, who lives in Lake Junaluska, N.C.

Google says its search engine reflects whatever is on the Internet. To remove information about themselves, people have to contact Web site administrators.

A disadvantage of instant Internet profiling is that there is no quality control — and little protection against misinterpretation. The fragments of people’s lives that emerge on the Internet are somewhat haphazard. They can be incomplete, out of context, misleading or simply wrong.

John Doffing, the chief executive of an Internet talent agency called StartUpAgent, is surprised by how many job applicants ask him what it is like to be a gay chief executive in Silicon Valley. He says that even though he is heterosexual, some people assume he is gay because his name turns up on the Internet in association with his philanthropic work relating to AIDS and an online gallery devoted to gay and lesbian art.

While this has been more amusing than troubling, he says, such information could be misused. “What happens if I were a job seeker and someone decides not to give me a job because of the same assumption?” he asked.

There are also cases of mistaken Google-identity. Sam Waltz Jr., a business consultant in Wilmington, Del., met a woman through an online dating service. Before they met in person, she sent him an e-mail message saying that she did not think they were compatible. She had found his name on a Web site called SincereLust.com, which appeared to her to be run by a Delaware-based transvestite group.

“I’m sitting here, reading her e-mail and thinking, ‘What is this?’ ” Mr. Waltz said.

He discovered that the site was a drama group dedicated to “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” His son, Sam Waltz III, had been a member while he was at the University of Delaware.

Mr. Waltz quickly explained the situation to the woman, and they have been dating for 18 months. “Now I periodically do a self-Google to make sure there is nothing else that needs to be challenged or checked,” Mr. Waltz said.

Some say that the phenomenon of instant unchecked background searches could be manipulated to sabotage others’ reputations.

Jeanne Achille, the chief executive of a public relations firm called the Devon Group, was horrified that someone had used her name and e-mail address to post racist slurs in a French online discussion group. She has repeatedly had to explain the situation to potential clients who have asked her about the posting.

“Whoever did this had to put some thought into it,” Ms. Achille said. “Is it perhaps one of our competitors? Is it someone who felt we did something to them and wanted to get back at us? Is it a personal thing? Is it a disgruntled former employee?”

The posting has been impossible to remove. “There is no cyberpatrol that you can go to and make all of this go away,” Ms. Achille said. “You just have to live with it.”

Defensive StrategiesHow to Limit Search Exposure

A lot of online information about you and your family may be out of your immediate control, but there are ways to limit what others can find.

* Periodically do Internet searches on your name to see what turns up. If there is information that you prefer not to have publicly available, contact the site’s owner or Webmaster. Google says its database will typically reflect the changes within six to eight weeks.

* When making postings to the Internet, Usenet discussion groups or e-mail lists that archive messages, consider using a nickname or an “online handle” rather than your full formal name.

* Take steps to prevent a personal Web site or Weblog from being noted by the robotic programs that “crawl” and index the Web (for example, a family Web page that you want only friends and family members to see). Information on how to do that is available at www.robotstxt.org.

* If you sign a petition or make a donation to a political group, understand that the information could become public and searchable on the Internet.

* If you want to put personal photos on the Internet, consider using an online photo service that can “share” photos with families and friends using a password but are not indexed for search engines.

* If you do online genealogy, consider whether or not you have — or need — permission to put information about living people online, including their mothers’ maiden names, which can be used in identity theft.

* Remember that e-mail sent in confidence can be forwarded, intentionally or inadvertently, and even wind up on the Web.