I’ve written a bit about on-line privacy in the past months, and how can one ignore the topic with the N.S.A. scandal and the Snowden leaks. In this and the next post I want to share a story each of on-line privacy issues from opposite directions.
The first and most recent story begins with a conversation I had over dinner with a guy who told me about his ex (which wasn’t all that “ex” as it turns out, but that’s a hole other topic and not for this blog). From the conversation I had gathered the following information:
– Fairly popular first name, say Melanie
– Occupation: orthopedic surgeon
– Previous employer: big sprawling hospital, say: NYU Medical Center
– New employer: somewhere near New Haven, CT
I was curious what the “ex” looked like, so I took to my browser not expecting much. It took me exactly 90 seconds to find her photo on-line. I found that more disturbing, than I was proud of my detective skills.
Maybe this just goes to show that hospitals do a very good job advertising their doctors, but I have the creeping suspicion that a repeat performance with different coordinates would result in similar results. Have you tried? How much do you manage your on-line persona? Read the next blog entry on the reverse issue – being found.
this is really scary!
However, if I put in my name on google alerts I do not receive any hits.