Egosurfing

Who, in all honesty, hasn’t ever googled themselves?
For many this ‘egosurfing’ is a form of self indulgence: how many hits will my name bring up? Others claim it is “personal brand management”: you have to make sure that your name is out there!

Many people are delighted to find they are in fact a tennis player from France, a country music star from Texas or a Russian film director. Others are not so happy being an infamous criminal from the 1960s or popular porn star from Sweden.

What is scary however is if some of those hits provide information about you, the real you, that you might not want the general internet using public to know.

Having googled searched my mother’s name, without even having to enter a site readers could see my home phone number and my parents’ email address. I’m almost certain my mother wouldn’t realise this information was so accessible and I’m sure she wouldn’t want it to be so.

Having an unusual name myself the hits I get are usually about me. Unfortunately these hits are posted by someone else and have my name and in one case my photo in them. I’d prefer to have no hits than several passing mentions in blogs.

While it is slightly intrusive, numerous egosurfers would celebrate with so much as a misspelt last name or random bloggers comment.