WHY? Privacy, no!

[Deno]

Why is everything in our profiles seachable and can be found via Google. Can't things you would expect be private to the members of this site be excluded from Google and other search engines. I don't even want my user name to be found via google yet alone information I have put in my profile. I would think this would be important to everyone. I cut and pasted my location to see if it was accurate and bam there in google was my username here at LPSG and a link right to my personal profile.

 

[ManlyBanisters]

Then perhaps you should change your location to something a tad less... um, let's see, what's the phrase... oh yeah - completely and utterly personal to you and reasonably easily identifiable to anyone with half a brain cell.

Just an idea :smile:

 

[D_Tim McGnaw]

Yeah tbh you are responsible for what information you make available to the public via the internet and where you make it available, if you don't want random strangers to be able to know certain things about you then don't put them on the internet where they can be searched for or merely stumbled upon by anyone.

 

[Deno]

Then perhaps you should change your location to something a tad less... um, let's see, what's the phrase... oh yeah - completely and utterly personal to you and reasonably easily identifiable to anyone with half a brain cell.

Just an idea :smile:

It isn't the location I put there is is the actual text. Icould put a false location there and would still lead people to my profile. It was not my point. So what the second poster is saying is don't put stuff in your profile. I guess that is what I need to do then.

 

[ManlyBanisters]

You're a bit intellectually challenged dear - aren't you?

The character string (or 'text' if you like) you used as your location has only one search result on Google - your profile. For a longtime I had my location as ( . ) ( . ) - google that and see what you get.

Geddit now?

 

[novice_btm]

I actually agree with Deno, and don't like Google harvesting this site. Yeah, yeah, I get it, if you post online, you've put it out there. Everyone should know that by now. On the other hand, we've had a few instances of both naiveté and malice, where real names and other personal information have been posted here, that could make a connection that members don't want made, never intended to be made, and was perhaps unwillingly and unknowingly made for them. It's bad enough to have it happen within the confines of the site, but to have it go global in short order, can be catastrophic. Mods do try to act on privacy issues as soon as we're aware of them, but again, if we don't know about it, then it's out there.

There was also a period, a while back, where the user list was entirely overrun by "Yahoo! Slurp Spider", harvesting the site. "Google analytics" must be the flavour of the day.

 

[D_Tim McGnaw]

Mods do try to act on privacy issues as soon as we're aware of them, but again, if we don't know about it, then it's out there.

This of course is also true, though we can only do so much about the information members decide to make public about themselves. Of course if they report things to us they would like to have removed from public consumption we'll try to deal with that, and of course if another member makes information available about another member we'll deal with that too. But we can't do much about people knowingly disclosing stuff about themselves in the normal order of things and not attempting to have that information removed, that's where we have to rely on member's own best judgement.

 

[Bbucko]

I belong to two different message boards which are specifically designed to be Googlebot-proof. They are maintained solely for the pleasure of their respective webmasters/owners and the restricted few who have been purposefully invited to participate. There is no question as to whether there's a profit motive or not: there most definitely is not.

General-interest websites like Facebook, MySpace (does anyone still maintain an active account there with regular updates?) and, yes, LPSG are completely open to Googlebots and are easily accessible via searches, as are blogs (Blogspot is a Google brand, after all). When I speak about compartmentalizing my life and what I choose to contribute to different parts of the internet, I always keep Googlebots and the like in mind.

It's a kind of informed consent regarding who knows what where; I may be kidding myself but I believe it's effective in maintaining my the tiny amount of "privacy" I believe that I enjoy. There are rather stern warnings over at AIDSmeds.com about voluntarily disclosing anything that could compromise oneself IRL, as the right search matrix could confirm vast info regarding one's health and sexual practices.

I guess the question really is why anyone should really care who can glean what from a given search: who has the time, the staff and the inclination to make real-life consequential decisions about you based on what you post here or at HuffPo or your "private" blog (no such thing), etc. And at least for Americans, this should have been debated openly before the passage of the so-called Patriot Act, which authorizes all manner of clandestine eavesdropping, including regular monitoring of cell phone conversations, texts and e-mails without the subject's knowledge.

It's 2010: privacy is dead. Enjoy your lunch.

 

[flame boy]

Careful thought about what you post online is very important in this day and age. It would be lovely to make information private on here however this isn't possible, so the next best step is to only share what you are comfortable with the internet seeing.

 

[Hoss]

Careful thought about what you post online is very important in this day and age. It would be lovely to make information private on here however this isn't possible, so the next best step is to only share what you are comfortable with the internet seeing.

True, so true.

 

[Pitbull]

I guess the question really is why anyone should really care who can glean what from a given search: who has the time, the staff and the inclination to make real-life consequential decisions about you based on what you post here or at HuffPo or your "private" blog (no such thing), etc.

It's 2010: privacy is dead. Enjoy your lunch.

A lot of people have posted personal stuff and have had it come back and bite them in the ass.
People have lost their jobs or have been turned down for them because of things posted.
A majority of divorce lawyers search the internet to find info about spouses that will be helpful to their clients in child custody and financial matters. Facebook is always checked by the more savvy attorneys.

Many of these searches do not take much time. And basic common sense precautions are not taken.