Glimpse In A Mirror

Privacy & The Single Girl

I just did something that I haven't done for years... I did a vanity search on Google for my name. And I was HORRIFIED to discover what came up. For the most part, I've done a good job at keeping myself anonymous, except for my journal writing workshop. [I'm not going to mention the name because I don't want it to come up in a Google search!] There are only a few places where someone could link the real me to my online presence. And my God, the tiny project that caused me all of the trouble in the first place shows up on nearly 60 websites thanks to the franchising of data at DMOZ. Those people must be making tons of money, the way they are reselling their data. I'm there, with my full name, nearly a hundred time. Thank God that online journal is dead and has been dead since all of the trouble started. What was that, three years ago now?

In the beginning of the Internet, it was fun to search on my name, and I would get so excited each time I found a new link to me, a new site that mentions my name. But once I got burned, I stopped loving that sort of attention. Being in search results isn't being famous, it is giving people a handle to learn things about me, and use them against me as I found out the hard way. But at least I understood that I was caught in the trap of human nature, and I did what I had to do to protect myself. I turned off that weblog, and when I returned, I was anonymous. I still am anonymous. Almost.

I've created several different online personas over the years. I pretty much only have one right now, and that is fine with me. Although I realized tonight that adding a second one would dilute the path to my door. Perhaps it is time to pull out an old one, one that no one would link to me. That would be good. It might be worth the effort I might have to think about that idea for a while.

But the whole concept is interesting. Creating false identities so that my real identity remains private, so that what I say can't be used against me, so I can be totally honest about what I'm thinking and feeling. Of course, there are other ways to be anonymous... ways to stay under the radar, but I want to connect to an audience. I just don't want the audience to connect back to me in a personal way. I don't have a problem with that. But maybe I can also think about removing myself from the hubub, not allowing the search engines to find me in the first place. I know how to do that. It means writing just for myself again. I can do that. In fact, that is why I don't have comments on this site... I don't want dialog. I need a place where I can monologue, where I can dump my heart and mind and not worry about what people will think. Or maybe, all I'm worried about is what people might say back to me, what they think isn't my concern at all. Hmmmm... more to think about.

I wonder if this is any sort of glimpse into the loss of privacy that happens to public figures? It's not like there is a papparazzi hunting down information on me, rather, there are webbots that are scanning the Internet for nouns they can index. Much like a reporter or shutter bug who is looking for an image for factoid that they can sell to feed the machine that, in turn, feed them through a paycheck. Hmmm... more to think about.