I hope nobody ever googles me, because if they do they are going to get a lot of sketchy stories and nude pictures of someone else, and probably not a thing about me personally.
I googled my girlfriend, or myspaced her, when we first met, and she googled me, too. We met in the supermarket, so of course we had to internet stalk each other.
No heavy analysis, she found my Facebook page and giggled about my (super hot) topless pictures. Stuff like that. Her roommate was more into it than she was, and looked me up on RateMyProfessor. I looked at her MySpace. I sent her picture to a friend of mine who asked what supermarket girl looked like.
She says when she was looking at me she was just checking I wasn’t a raving conservative or Jesus freak or, you know, already had a girlfriend. The usual stuff. I was checking to make sure that she wasn’t just hot in cold glare of fluorescent supermarket lights. Again, the usual.
We’ve been together a year now, so this didn’t lead to instant relationship breakdown.
I think it’s stupid and a little weird. If you want to know about your dates ask them.
If it’s such a good idea do you tell them you googled them the night before? Because I’m sure they would love to know you did.
I don’t think it’s stupid or weird, honestly. You just met someone, you’re interested in them. The whole thing about “interested in” is that you want to know more about them. So you go and look. Why is this such a weird thing?
If I recall correctly, I did tell her that I’d found her on Myspace. It’s just not a big deal.
Fundamentally, if you put information out onto the internet of your own free will and then get upset when people see it, well, that I think is a little weird.
I googled my dates when I was dating, and I would do it again. It was a while ago, so it was difficult to find anything. I would assume they are doing that to me as well. I don’t do facebook or MySpace so they won’t find me there. They would find several academic papers and nothing particularly incriminating or even indicative of my politics.
Um, people lie?
And no, of course we don’t tell them. That’s ridiculous. I fully expect them to do whatever they want to research me. I googled myself the other day and found a facebook page of someone with my name who is about 30 years younger than I am.
Big deal.
Because you’re not asking them about themselves or their lives. You don’t know what they want you to know. They might consider it to be none of your business.
Yes, that would be wierd, IF you put that information of YOUR own free will. Some things can be looked up over the internet that you don’t want others to know. Legal documents, academic papers, addresses, work history and personal photos can all be found on the internet by people you never meant to share them with. And since you don’t know what their wishes on those things are, you shouldn’t googlestalk anybody.
Here’s a rather extreme but plausible example: She was raped and you dig around the internet and find a report about it. Even though her case is on the public domain She still doesn’t want anybody to know of it because she feels ashamed or wants to move past it or is still traumatized and would rater not even talk about it. But now you know even though she didn’t want you to know. What do you do now? Mention it? She would get angry and most likely feel her privacy has been violated and now you need to look for another one. Not tell her? You’re being dishonest with someone before even the first date.
Trash can be found on the curb, public property, but you don’t dig around looking for condoms to find out if she gets around.
Go ahead, have fun,
Google Chris Moore.
Guess which one I am.
I just can’t get myself worked up about this, or the “omg the girl I’m going out for drinks with thinks that 3-2-amalase is catalyzed by glucosamine? Fuck that shit.” scenario. Most of the personal information you find on google is completely worthless for finding out interesting tidbits, anyway. Is the Sandra McSmokin who likes Harry Potter and light bondage the same Sandra McSmokin you met at the county fair?
Academic papers? Work history? Addresses? Who cares? As for personal photos, if they are on the internet and tied to your name, then you, or someone you know, put them there on purpose. Go ahead, try to find a picture of yourself online using a search engine. I wish you luck. It doesn’t count if it’s on MySpace or Facebook because, if you put your picture there, it was so people could see it. (And both sites have features so random strangers can’t see your stuff, if you don’t want them to.)
I agree with you on extreme, and because I am such a generous person I will give you plausible. But frankly, I don’t care. That’s like saying you shouldn’t ask the young lady you just met out for drinks because both her parents might have been killed in a horrific beer truck accident and it would make her sad.
Yeah, because googling somebody or looking up their facebook page is just like digging through their trash looking for used rubbers.
However, having said all of that, I do agree with you to some extent. Running down to the county courthouse and seeing what you can see see see is a bit odd. If I were out on a date with some girl and she said “Oh, by the way, did you know that someone with your exact name is a registered sex offender? He’s 15 years older than you and lives in South Dakota, though, so I knew it wasn’t you and that’s why I agreed to come out to this lovely tea house with you. By the way, did you know that you have an unpaid parking ticket in Cook County and three overdue library books?” then yeah, I’d be a bit weirded out.
When I saw the thread title, I thought it meant BIRTH date and couldn’t imagine why that would not be healthy.
It really is interesting being me :smack:
ETA that as of this post, my current post total is 666, which might actually explain a lot. :dubious:
That doesn’t necessarily mean I condone the use they put them to. Photos can be manipulated to make someone appear to be in a compromising position; rants can be written; old love letters can be posted; damn near anything I’ve ever written since 1990 has been typed into a computer, and most of it emailed at least once, and I can’t control whether anybody ever decided they’d share it or post it where I have no power to remove it.
And someone I know might have passed them along to someone I don’t know, and on down the line, so your guess that “everything must have been posted by me or by someone I know” is a little naive.
As an example, that YouTube clip of the woman falling over in the workplace a few months ago. I’m sure she doesn’t want that posted any longer, but she has no control over it. Would she want her date finding a clip like that?
Sigh. This is my third ‘I don’t get it.’ post in a couple days. Although I hate to let my ignorance hang out, I don’t get it.
Unless someone uses their real name for the date and on the internet, how would they find anything out? Most of the people in this thread are using usernames that are not real names. How would someone find out that it was them saying anything on a message board?
Googling a name alone is not enough. Googling for someone’s email address is a different matter. Name + email would come up with even more positive hits; name + email + location more.
If you ever shared your email address online with anyone, it could be reachable by Google.
I have only one email address. Should I be much more paranoid and have a unique email address for each message board I’m on?
No. But this is all really a bit silly. To take your example of the woman falling down, even though it’s all over YouTube, it’s still essentially anonymous. If you want to watch the video of the woman falling down you go to youtube and look for falling down woman videos. You don’t know what that woman’s name is, and if you did know her name, it wouldn’t help you to find that video. It’s the same with pictures, even pictures posted by your enemies without your permission. Unless they label each of these pictures with your name or some other information, they aren’t actually tied to you.
I suppose it’s possible that some piscophile out there is just looking at random Fish pictures on google images and finds compromising photos of you with a dolphin, but unless they already know what you look like, they can’t connect it to you.
In some sense this is like people posting naked pictures on the internet. There are tons of people doing all sorts of horribly kinky things to themselves and others and, indeed, people do occasionally get into trouble with their work about it. But the usual scenario for getting busted as an amateur dominatrix is that your boss is into the kink as you and sees your pictures and recognizes you. He couldn’t have found them by searching for your name or email address or what have you, because the pictures aren’t linked to the name or anything else.
Most of these things you’re talking about aren’t indexed by search engines in the first place, and even if they were they aren’t searchable in any kind of meaningful way that can tie them to you. The falling down woman is safe from the googling of potential mates. (If they hang out on the Straight Dope watching all of the “What’s your favorite thing on YouTube right this very instant” videos on the other hand, she may face a bit of embarrassment.)