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More checking out their online profiles
Searches target selves, co-workers
BY ANICK JESDANUN The Associated Press

    NEW YORK — More Americans are Googling themselves — and many are checking out their friends, co-workers and romantic interests, too.
    In a report Sunday, the Pew Internet and American Life Project said 47 percent of U.S. adult Internet users have looked for information about themselves through Google or another search engine.
    That is more than twice the 22 percent of users who did so in 2002, but Pew senior research specialist Mary Madden was surprised the growth wasn’t higher.
    “Yes, it’s doubled, but it’s still the case that there’s a big chunk of Internet users who have never done this simple act of plugging their name with search engines,” she said. “Certainly awareness has increased, but I don’t know it’s necessarily kept pace with the amount of content we post about ourselves or what others post about us.”
    About 60 percent of Internet users said they aren’t worried about the extent of information about themselves online despite increasing concern over how that data can be used.
    Americans under 50 and those with more education and income were more likely to self-Google — in some cases because their jobs demand a certain online persona.
    Meanwhile, Pew found that 53 percent of adult Internet users admit to looking up information about someone else, celebrities excluded.
    Often, it’s to find someone they’ve lost touch with. But looking up information about friends, relatives, colleagues and neighbors also was common.
    Although men and women equally searched for online information about themselves, women were slightly more likely to look up information about someone they are dating.
    In many cases, the search is innocuous, done to find someone’s contact information. But a third of those who have conducted searches on others have looked for public records, such as bankruptcies and divorce proceedings. A similar number have searched for someone else’s photo.
    Few Internet users say they Google themselves regularly — about three-quarters of selfsearchers say they have done so only once or twice. And most who have done so consider what they find accurate. Only 4 percent of Internet users said embarrassing or inaccurate information online resulted in a bad experience.
    Pew also found that teens were more likely than adults to restrict who can see their profiles at an online hangout like Facebook or News Corp.’s MySpace, contrary to conventional wisdom.
    “Teens are more comfortable with the applications in some ways, [but] I also think they have their parents and teachers telling them to be very careful about what they post and who they share it with,” Madden said.

I did this a couple of days ago.  It is somewhat disconcerting to know the things that are out there forever.  One thing that bothered me was an email I received to sign a petition about illegal aliens.  A copy of that was online.  Not that I minded the content so much but, just that my name was pulled off an email that I had totally forgotten about. All of the things of course are public information, but it was an eye opener.

I googled myself  ( sounds kinky though ) - I guess Im most proud of my long range boomerang competition results- show up on the first page

I googled my name and there was NOTHING! Guess I'm pretty boring!

Boomerang competition?  Interesting.  I'd check it out, but would probably not get results using "somebody"

You are one interesting character there, 'somebody'. You apparently have experienced life to the fullest, I'd say. Well, as compared to others I know.

Quoted from bumblethru

You are one interesting character there, 'somebody'. You apparently have experienced life to the fullest, I'd say. Well, as compared to others I know.

I stay sort of anonymus on line but I  PM d  Rene with my name-  I think almost anything you say online can show up- Google -which  is bad enough but for a free quick look ZabaSearch.com will give a satillite view of your back yard along with other information to  almost anyone-

Just about anything published on line will show up on google-

I think if you run a 5k around central park- you can probaly find your name -

I tried that zabasearch and it will map you right to the persons front door.