The Question For Critical Thinking that caught my eye was the the second question from Chapter 11. It suggested doing a Web search with your name to see how much personal information you could find. My name fairly common and I thought it would be interesting to see if the search would bring up any of my personal information.
I decided to use Goggle's search engine to begin my research, simply because that's the site I always use when I'm searching for something. At first I simply typed in my first and last name, "Alison Williams". The search results showed information for Alison Williams as a contemporary artist, wedding photographer, holistic practitioner, and other professions. Pages and pages of results for my name and yet none provided any information about me.
I knew my search was too general and decided to include my city and state. My search for "Alison Williams Seattle, Washington" was more successful than my first try. On the first page of results, the sixth item from the top related me. I had signed up for a Dachshund Meet-up club when I first got my Dachshund a year ago. I only logged on once, the day I set up the account and I haven't used it since. I was surprised that the first piece of personal information I found came from something I signed up for without much thought.
For my last search, I added my zip code to the previous search. My complete address and home phone number popped up on my screen, listed under the result link. My personal information was available without having to click on a link to another website.
This is a scary thought because the information is out there, open to the public. It would not be difficult for others to access this information. If someone knew the general area I live in along with zip codes of that area, they could find me and come knocking at my door. This was definitely a wake up call to me and I think anyone with some free time on their hands should try it, too.
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Hm, not much information came up about me. I doubt it would take long however, for someone who knows where to look, to find my most vital data. That is the blessing and grief of the Internet.
Not so personal is right...one google search came up with a previous home address and phone number, and also my current work address and phone number.
The Internet can yield all sorts of personal information that someone would otherwise not have made public.
The internet definitely has some evils when it comes to personal information. Google is one the most widely used and powerful search engines. What’s even more disturbing is the storage capacity of search engines to store data you’ve searched for on their servers. What happens if a person taps into their servers and what’s the companies personal responsibility to the user? Remember last year when Google challenged access to their servers: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5167782
Luckily when I’ve searched for my name both married and maiden it’s resulted allowable public information. I also learned other people with the same name as me exist. I one time ran a search on my brother and mother in which no information was available. There have been times where my cell phone has received unsolicited phone calls and I typed the number into the reversephonedirectory.com and was able to learn in most cases what company was leaving unwanted messages on my phone.
I have not yet tried to put my name into a search engine yet. I think I will later on tonight for I am wondering what will come up under my name. I am not surprised that it is possible for people to look you or anyone else up. For in todays society anything is possible. It is a really scary thought though that people can access personal information about others. I think a lot of that is what makes identity theft so easy.
Also I know people create the information on wikipedia.com. So if you think about it one of your friends could put you in there too, which is not the best idea I don't think. But then again being able to find out stuff about certain people by typing their name in is kind of similor to my space and things like that in the sense that you can find out alot about a person.
Check this story on privacy from NPR
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6710445
OK I tried it, you made me nervious haha. When I put my name into Google with the city and zip none of my phone numbers showed up, just different Nicole Nelson's. But some of my old tournament listing popped up from when I was younger. I guess they posted the winners and groupings online, and I didn't even know. I guess I will be permantely a winner online!
Well, I am not surprised to hear your story of finding yourself in the net. The internet is still evolving and much will be discovered of its bad or good impact on the society. I tried myself and could not find anything about me, but that does not mean there is nothing on the net, may be I am not well informed of how to search people’s personal information. I am always cautious about the stories evolving frequently of identity theft. Yes it is also a scary if my home address is in the internet; this world is not save anymore.
Wow it is scary to think how many people can just type in your name and full up all your personal information. The internet with all its good leave most people with no privacy. Now a days when people pay or buy something from the internet it makes me wonder if someone who hacks into that website could come away with ALL my information.
I think it's crazy that so much personal information is available. As you were saying, websites that you don't think twice about when joining their communities. Little bits of information can be pulled up on almost all the search engines. The only beneficial part to having personal information available is when searching for geneologies. There should definitely be some rules and regulations on what is available to everyone. Can I please be unlisted on the internet?
Random things can be pulled up about me, only if you know certain information... and the only address that comes up is one from years and years ago! Which is a good thing! I am basically off the radar for now and will have to keep it that way. But this critical thinking question intregied me too!
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