Panopticon World

Thomas Friedman sees people who see people:

For young people, writes Seidman, this means understanding that your reputation in life is going to get set in stone so much earlier. More and more of what you say or do or write will end up as a digital fingerprint that never gets erased. Our generation got to screw up and none of those screw-ups appeared on our first job résumés, which we got to write. For this generation, much of what they say, do or write will be preserved online forever. Before employers even read their résumés, they’ll Google them.

Ezra gets appropriately deflationary about these claims, but I think there's obviously something to what Friedman's saying. One constant in human history is that norms about privacy are constantly switching as what the underlying technology and economy make possible shift as well. When people were too poor to afford multi-room houses, certain things were normal. Now that people are rich enough to afford all kinds of gadgets and Web 2.0 tools, other things are becoming normal.

But one fascinating element of this trend is how variable it all is. If you have a fairly rare name, it's easy to scope out information about you through Google even if not much is there. If you're Tom Lee or Susan Smith, however, (to name a couple of friends) then things get much less clear. And, of course, if there does happen to be another Matthew Yglesias out there somewhere, it's really hard to find information on him.

Comments

All of my online life is done through the 'wiredog' name. Google for that and my writing at Slashdot, Kuro5hin, HuSi, and other places pops up. Google for my real name (which isn't all that common) and you get bupkis. My real-world nickname returns many thousands of results, none of which are me.

Posted by wiredog | June 27, 2007 10:50 AM

The US is a big country and the Anglophone world is even larger. I like to think that I have a rare name, but there are at least four others that I can name off the top of my head.

Posted by Klug | June 27, 2007 11:12 AM

Set in stone? Hardly. Websites come and go. And there are companies like reputationdefender.com that will help you erase your online trail.

I'm sure Friedman would have written the same thing upon the invention of the printing press.

Posted by Max | June 27, 2007 11:26 AM

In all honesty google doesn't worry me nearly as much as Facebook which has far more identifying information. Especially in more exclusive fields which recruit from a small pool of universities. Most of initial resume vetting in those sorts of places, Law Firms, Investment Banks, Management Consultancies, etc., are done by junior people just a few years out of the very same colleges. Having been on both sides in recent years, everyone gets looked up on facebook despite it not being officially sanctioned. And while your name may be safely annonymous on google (my nicely generic welsh name means only one page associated with me comes up on the first several pages of google), the number of people with the same name who graduated from Columbia at the same time as I did is vanishingly small.

Posted by Nick | June 27, 2007 12:19 PM

Future employers will be impressed by my many car dealerships and heaps of medical research papers. The latter really bugs me because he even crowds me out of vanity searches on Web of Science, prolific bastard!

Posted by Njorl | June 27, 2007 12:38 PM

My name seems to be attached to lots of criminals, professors, doctors, and mid-level managers. Or maybe that's just a profile of people who show up on the web.

Posted by Jeffrey Davis | June 27, 2007 12:51 PM

Judson Frondorf is my name. Only one shows when googled.

And I welcome any and all investigations. The new paradigm is full and unembarrassed disclosure. Hell, at this point in my life I could give a rat's ass what employers think. And don't think you can ever hide. Once connected always connected.

Posted by judson | June 27, 2007 1:03 PM