Many wonder how much privacy you can have when a simple Google query reveals so many details of your life. I think there’s an easy answer to this problem. Just change your name to something that already pulls up a lot of Google hits.
If your name is Jernicky Washington, for example, just change your first name to “George.” Is your name Sallisan Poppins? Change your first name to “Mary.” Maybe you’ve had the misfortune of being Yasmarine Table? Change your first name to “Oak.” With a name like George Washington, Mary Poppins, or Oak Table, it will be really hard for people to find out much information about you.
I realize there’s a downside. Every time you meet someone new, they’ll ask, “Wait, is your name really ____?” Plus, everyone will assume your parents had a terrible sense of humor. That’s unfortunate. But hey, just let them try to Google you.
CJColucci says:
There used to be a federal judge name George T. Washington. He says that whenever he signed in at a hotel with his attractive, blonde wife, he got funny looks. CJColucci(Quote)
Bretzky says:
Since my last name is Champion, maybe I should just change my first name to Olympic, or how about Michael Phelps. Bretzky(Quote)
kdackson says:
OK, professor. A very serious question.
You have a business and want to promote it. Additionally, you hold a professional license, and have done significant work (some published, some not) under your “real” name. You WANT people to find that.
However, details of your private life, i.e., your home address, phone number, price you paid for your house, when you got married and to whom, divorced, children (found in birth announcements). This information should be considered largely priviliged (or private).
How do you solve that by legally changing your name to “Oak Table”? kdackson(Quote)
kdackson says:
As an adjunct to my question above, when I googled my name, I found there were shipping manifests of my one-year move TO and FROM China. Why should these be public records? kdackson(Quote)
Careless says:
My first and last names are the same as the middle and last name of a well known actor. There are hundreds of thousands of hits for my name in quotes. Heck, GIS turns up a couple hundred thousand images on my name. I get google-buried without having a silly name Careless(Quote)
Brat Magursky says:
I kinda chuckle everytime i read or hear complaints about the amount of personal\private info available on the web...why I chuckle is the very complainers are constantly “twitting”, “my spacing”, “facebooking”, “ICQing” ‚I-Ming”, and “blogging” and every other kinda of digital “ing” to lord knows who on the web about the most trivial yet otherwise private matters. So the digital world really doesn’t know what lines are to be drawn where. I agree with the sentiment that to protect ourselves we should do all we can to prevent privacy invasion but when you contribute to the problem don’t whine about the problem. The downside is there is very little room for middle ground here. Even seeing those cute bumper stickers on the family car showing names of mom, dad, little sister, little brother and the family dog seems to me to be opening one up to tragic scenarios. We are living in an increasingly unstable world, don’t be a victim. Brat Magursky(Quote)
ShelbyC says:
Or to borrow one from xkcd, how about Jim’); drop table keywords; ShelbyC(Quote)
Eric Rasmusen says:
What’s wrong with the world knowing true facts about other people? Is it that people assume that if Mr X knows the name of my dog then he must know me personally? If so, it’s a transition problem since soon everyone will realize that that kind of fact no longer indicates personal contact. Eric Rasmusen(Quote)
PatHMV says:
Keith, the issue of whether certain government-required forms should be public record is an entirely separate issue from the issue of Google (and other search engines) making it very easy to find all sorts of information about you which has been made available by private parties. I hope your stuff had a good ride on the Hanjin San Francisco.
As to the other question, however, things like birth announcements, obituaries, records of marriage and divorce, etc., those things are not terribly private. They are all public records, and appropriately so. All sorts of legal rights and liabilities vis-a-vis third parties hinge on whether you are legally married, legally divorced, a parent or not. It’s entirely appropriate for that information to be found fairly easily. PatHMV(Quote)
Snaphappy says:
Perhaps changing my name to Snaphappy Fishsuit Mokiligon was ill advised. Snaphappy(Quote)
PatHMV says:
Eric, that’s an excellent point, and one of my pet peeves over Social Security Numbers. The problem is that today we treat the SSN as a kind of PIN. If you know the SSN, you’re presumed to be the person to whom that SSN is assigned. How stupid of a presumption is that these days? The SSN should be considered a unique identifier, a username, rather than a PIN. PatHMV(Quote)
PatHMV says:
McLovin has 175,000 hits. Is that good enough? PatHMV(Quote)
kdackson says:
Pat, I understand the issue of public records. However, within the past year an old flame (from 20 years ago) actually found out where I live (after 2 moves) and sent a postcard to my home.
My wife was not amused.
Where do you draw the line? Tax return information? Medical records?
Now as to the private records being made public, what’s to stop your private medical information making it onto the web for Google to discover if Obamacare gets enacted?
Kind of hard to “unring” that bell.
Google has surplanted the nebulous “Permanent Record”. kdackson(Quote)
ASlyJD says:
kdackson,
A lot of what you describe can be accomplished by use of one’s middle name.
I’ll out myself for an example.
My name “Amy Schley” gets buried in a google search under a psychologist in Waukesha, WI. She got quoted in a story about shooting feral cats that had a gazillion hits, apparently.
My full name “Amy Ruth Schley” gives you 1) my email to Glenn Reynolds from covering KC’s first tea party, 2) my fiction, and 3) a bunch of people linking to Instapundit.
Because of this situation, I omit my middle name anytime my resume is going to be sent to someone who might not look favorably on that history.
BTW, “ASlyJD” comes from the pronunciation of my last name, not from any attempt to claim I am subtle or sneaky. ASlyJD(Quote)
PatHMV says:
There’s just no way to stop people from finding out where you live. Unless we want to enact some seriously draconian privacy bills like Europe has, that’s going to be fairly easy to do. Your credit report is going to maintain all of your addresses; our modern credit system will not work without that. And once that is available to creditors in general, then it’s going to be very easy for private investigators (and now, automated versions of such) to obtain it. I don’t think there’s much way to stop that.
Now for your government-obtained data, that’s a different story, and I’m with you for most of that (and it’s one of the reasons I fight government involvement in most segments of the economy).
Your private records you have a bit more control over, as long as the government stays out of stuff. Just don’t do business with anybody who wants to make your data public. But of course that’s not the direction we’re going in. I read recently about how an amendment (to either one of the Obamacare bills or some other bill dealing with electronic medical records) was adopted to guarantee that one had a right to purge information about STDS and abortions from your medical records. That’s fine, but why can’t I purge ANY information in my medical record that I don’t want them to see? If the government would stay out of it, I could choose to use doctors who participated in an e-record system which gave me full control over my own personal data. PatHMV(Quote)
kdackson says:
AslyJD, not really an option for one with no middle name. kdackson(Quote)
Barack Obama says:
Prof. Kerr’s advice certainly is working for me! Barack Obama(Quote)
Ken Arromdee says:
Because large parts of the world can discriminate against me based on those true facts. What if my name turns up on a fan site associated with a kid’s TV show and I miss out on a job because someone in HR assumes that being interested in a kid’s show makes me a child predator? What if I appear to be a Republican and a prospective employer is a Democrat and thinks all Republicans are untrustworthy? Ken Arromdee(Quote)
kdackson says:
Pat, I had an old employer who “lost” data and wound up paying for a year of credit monitoring. Like that really helped. Even if you only work with people who promise to protect your data, you are vunerable.
Interesting that if you own an apartment, you have more right to privacy than if you own a house.
Yes, public records for property transfers, but why do they need to publish what you paid? Most of the time, these are records that NEWSPAPERS print and are picked up on the web. Same with birth, death, wedding, bankruptcy.
Newspapers are the worst offenders of invading privacy, because governments typically do not put this in electronic format for the world to see. kdackson(Quote)
PatHMV says:
There’s just no acceptable solution to the problem, Keith. Are you going to prohibit others from publishing public record data? Even if you try to limit it to republishing aggregate data in bulk for commercial gain, you’re still probably going to run up against First Amendment problems. Also, the easy electronic access to such information makes it MUCH cheaper to do a number of things which have always been done, anyway. It’s a lot easier for title companies to do title searches for you as you prepare to sell or buy property, because they don’t have to have permanent staff stationed in the clerk’s office to physically check records.
As you say, newspapers publish a lot of this stuff initially anyway. You going to pass a law dictating when the newspaper must purge from its archives true facts which are also contained in public records?
People have always done background checks, too, when enough was at stake. Limiting the publication of the data is essentially restricting access to the data only to those who are rich enough to afford to send somebody down to physically check all the public records that need to be checked. PatHMV(Quote)
uh_clem says:
You don’t even have to go that far.
My name is not exactly common — there’s nobody famous with my name and I’ve never met anyone who shares it. Still, when I do a Google search for it the first 500 hits or so are other people who share my name.
So, even generic names like Thomas Osborn or Janice Gould (two names taken at random from the Phonebook) are sufficient. uh_clem(Quote)
PatHMV says:
I share a name with a guy who writes for the World Socialists Web Site or some such. I worry that one day a prospective conservative-leaning girl I’m trying to date will Google me and recoil in horror! PatHMV(Quote)
Suzy says:
Several other people who appear rather accomplished in the worlds of business, academia, and medicine share my name, and their activities are splashed all over several pages of google before anything related to me shows up. The downside is that people google and THINK they have found me, and assume that some other person’s info or activities are applicable to me! Luckily my namesakes all seem fairly awesome, for now.
My husband shares a name with a guy who moved to our hometown and is only two years younger. This guy has been arrested a few times for petty crimes, which caused a terrific sensation across the extended family who thought it was my husband in the police record! Furthermore, my husband was still single when this guy got married, and he got an angry phone call from his grandpa, demanding to know why he hadn’t been invited to the wedding! All of this is due to simply the local newspaper–no Googling needed! Suzy(Quote)
Pintler says:
I believe I have heard of police officers obscuring the ownership of their home to avoid their ‘clients’ from dropping by for a visit. I don’t recall the details (form a corporation? Just hire a lawyer as an intermediary?). Pintler(Quote)
PatHMV says:
When I lived in DC, I shared a name with a guy who occasionally shacked up with a woman who lived on the first floor of my small, 8-floor apartment building. One day, the mailman delivered (by mistake) to me a mailed notice of his indictment for possession with intent to distribute cocaine.
I spent the last 5 months I lived there not sure which to be more afraid of, a SWAT raid or an invasion by some of his buddies wanting to make sure he didn’t rat them out.
We were of different races, so hopefully any mistaken identify would have been cleared up fairly quickly... provided I wasn’t caught in a cross-fire first. PatHMV(Quote)
CJColucci says:
I find depressing how little I’ve found about myself, despite an uncommon name. Maybe I’m doing it wrong. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything; now someone will find out all the stuff out there that I can’t. CJColucci(Quote)
Mark Field says:
Send her over here. We’ll vouch for your wingnut credentials. :) Mark Field(Quote)
drunkdriver says:
I recall reading a few years ago that Google would remove certain information about you if you asked them to, but I don’t know if they still have that policy or not.
There is just no way to prevent more and more information from becoming publicly known these days. My firm recently subscribed to a Westlaw database, Peoplemap, that gathers an astounding amount of information about individuals– vehicle registrations, voting, mortgages, litigation history, bankruptcy, partial SSNs, public records, etc. It’s similar to other commercial services that compile available information. You can have a civil or criminal case expunged, but if one of these services picks it up beforehand, it may follow you forever.
For minimal cost (or free in the case of Google), you can find out a great deal of information about just about anyone. drunkdriver(Quote)
jf says:
Then you shouldn’t want to work for him. He could, after all, ask whether or not you were a Republican on the application form. As to the former, I know I wouldn’t want to work for someone that idiotic. jf(Quote)
Bill Woods says:
Adopt a middle name, for ID purposes. Some people use multiple middle names, to track the retailers selling list of names. Bill Woods(Quote)
ASlyJD says:
Pat, at least you came of age before the internet. I have the embarrassment that columns I wrote for my undergraduate newspaper are online, including a passionate defense of liberalism. One section got copied by a website and is now a very common “what do liberals believe?” quote, often copied and pasted next to a JFK one!
Yep, that’s me — passionate defender of liberal ideas next to the tea party reporting. *embarrassed blush* ASlyJD(Quote)
PatHMV says:
LOL, Amy. Fortunately for me, I never went through that “liberal phase” in my youth... so even if somebody ever resurrects archives of the old Compuserve chat forums from the late 80s, I will be on record as being pro-life and opposed to major government intervention in the economy.
But don’t worry.... just remember to recycle President’s Bush’s line: “When I was young and foolish, well, I was young and foolish.” There’s always the Churchill quote, too. PatHMV(Quote)
LarryA says:
Except there aren’t that many [“george washington”+”name of hometown”] listings.
Because selling price of your property is partially what the value of all your neighbors’ property is based on for property taxes.
Texas law has a legal process for that purpose. Cops, district attorneys, etc. can use a business address on drivers licenses, etc. There’s also a procedure to establish a state PMB to shield the location of someone being stalked. LarryA(Quote)
JMA says:
kdackson says:
AslyJD, not really an option for one with no middle name.
Not true. Google neither knows nor cares what your legal name is. If you find yourself in AslyJD’s position but lack a middle name, simply insert one in your pen name.
“Problem” solved. :P JMA(Quote)
Dave N says:
Actually, I think it is a very clever nom de blog.
I use a pseudonym here largely because my views are, well, mine and not my employer’s. A Google search won’t find a single VC comment under my name though I have provided enough information on this site that anyone who really cared could find out who I am.
As for Google and privacy, my name is rather unique and there are still 1.2 million Google hits when I don’t put quotation marks around it (though only 6,900 when I do).
I do share the privacy concerns when there are deranged people out there who may wish others harm. I wish I knew what the answer was, though. Dave N(Quote)
ShelbyC says:
But your examples notwithstanding, aren’t things more efficient if people can discriminate against you based on true facts?
On a related note, IIRC there is one other person in the US that has the name Monica Lewinski. Poor lady. ShelbyC(Quote)
kdackson says:
Larry:
Yes, it’s public information. But that does not mean theat it has to be easy for anyone to find.
I have dealt with privacy issues when I lived in China. I set up a bank account for wire transfers. I made a relatively small transfer to test the system. When I arrived to start my assignment on the ride from the airport, my interpreter informed me that I should not worry because the wire transfer went through. She knew the exact amount.
Never did another wire transfer while living in China. kdackson(Quote)
Curt Fischer says:
Do you mean (1) data pertaining to you that you have knowingly provided to the government, or (2) data pertaining to you that the government has obtained by subpoenaing credit agencies, phone companies, or internet service providers like Google or Facebook, without your knowledge?
I am OK with private actors making judgements about me from the traces I have left online. I view it as a cost of making my voice heard on the internet — that’s the personal privacy policy I have set for myself. If someone makes erroneous assumptions about me because another guy named Curt Fischer is the principal of an elementary school or ran a marathon faster than I can, so be it.
But I’d prefer that the government not be able to use, collect, or rely on any of that data. The government has a legal monopoly on the ability to imprison me, after all. So I sometimes worry about providing data to Internet companies like Google or Facebook. Not because I think that Google or Facebook will expose my data or use it to nefarious ends, but because I think the government could probably go to Google or Facebook and collect data about me without my knowledge. What if an investigation revealed that a certain pedophile was a school principal and fast marathon runner (not me) named Curt Fischer? Could I be arrested and detained for some time until someone figured out that I wasn’t the right Curt Fischer? What if I wanted to travel to China on a tourist trip, but the guy who lived in my apartment before me was a known Chinese dissident? Could I be arrested when I arrived in China?
Maybe I am paranoid...and I am certainly NAL, so maybe I don’t understand the legal safeguards already in place to stop the government from going to third parties to get data about me. But I do worry. And for that reason I wish there were more middle ground. Curt Fischer(Quote)
John Armstrong says:
Luckily I can hide pretty easily, but I have the opposite problem of being found. If you include my field, I come right up, but not everyone is looking for me as a mathematician. That’s why I’ve staked out “DrMathochist” as a universal internet moniker that only I use. John Armstrong(Quote)
Eugene Volokh says:
Thanks!
and out... Eugene Volokh(Quote)
Tweets that mention The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Protecting Your Privacy in the Age of Google -- Topsy.com says:
arbitraryaardvark says:
@ k d ackson: how to be invisible, by what’s his name, suggests creating a wyoming company and have it own all your real estate, cars, etc. Pay somebody in wyoming to forward your mail to you.
I went through some of these steps, then my roommate signs me up for AAA, with my permission, but he put the address of the actual building we live in. Sigh. My email is gtbear @_, because once upon a time my teddy bear gt was on a junk snailmail list, so that my real mail wouldn’t get mixed up with his. Meanwhile I do my crime-fighting/blogging under the name arbitrary aardvark, but it’s a not-very-secret secret identity, given google and such.
Recently I’ve been tracing my family tree. I started with Oldolphus Hamm because I figured it would be easy to google,and from there one thing lead to another. Some are less easy; today I’ve been trying to sort whether Thomas Standish (1610) is or isn’t the son of pilgrim Myles Standish. arbitraryaardvark(Quote)
Dumbass says:
It worked, it worked! Professor Kerr, you’re a genius! Dumbass(Quote)
Orlando Lawyer Shane Fischer says:
That’s actually a brilliant idea. I kind of enjoy finding myself on Google, but I’m sure I’ll have my identity stolen soon. Love the post! Orlando Lawyer Shane Fischer(Quote)
Ken Arromdee says:
Not necessarily, because people aren’t rational. Someone who denies me a job because he thinks I’m a Republican and he doesn’t trust them is not making things more efficient. In fact, he’s making things less efficient, since his beliefs about Republicans are not based on reality. Spreading more information causes that person’s irrational beliefs to create negative externalities on Republicans and positive ones on everyone else.
You could argue that those externalities balance out, but even so, I don’t consider efficiency to be desirable. Every job lost to a Republican goes to someone else, so on the average, there’s no harm from the discrimination. However, I’d consider a society where joblessness is evenly distributed to be less bad than a society where Republicans (or suspected Republicans) are preferentially jobless, even though both societies are equally “efficient”. Ken Arromdee(Quote)
theobromophile says:
Ken: the other problem is that workers are not always fungible. A manager who refuses to hire the best person for the position (huge qualification: yes, this is a “whatever ‘best person’ mean” scenario) due to prejudice that will have nothing to do with performance may hire someone who is slightly less capable. To get a job for yourself, you may work for a company that cannot fully utilise your own skills. theobromophile(Quote)
Curious passerby says:
Trusts and LLCs managed by trusts can keep your real name out of the public records for many purposes. There’s an example here where it’s only $100 a year to have your property in a trustee’s name and it can keep the purchase price off the public records. Curious passerby(Quote)
Scott McLoud says:
Google my name (I have) you’ll only find endless pages of a similarly-named cartoonist. I love it, I hate the idea of too much personal info being on the web. Scott McLoud(Quote)
memomachine says:
Hmmmm
I’m lucky. I share the same name as a US Congressman.
Or maybe that’s –unlucky-. memomachine(Quote)
Instapundit » Blog Archive » SO DOES THIS MEAN I SHOULD CHANGE MY LAST NAME to “Beck?” UPDATE: A reader suggests keeping the … says:
Adrianne says:
Heh — I’m the only person probably ever with my (real) name, obtained via a rather cross-cultural marriage — so I do have to watch things a bit — but, during my spout-off-online stage in college, I wasn’t yet married. I’ve had people check me out online (I’m in a position where you’re not supposed to be opinionated, at least not publicly), and it’s pleasant to be “clean,” as it were. Too bad women (traditionally) get that option only once, and men (traditionally) never... it’s very useful! Adrianne(Quote)
Leigh says:
Curt mentioned, “What if I wanted to travel to China on a tourist trip, but the guy who lived in my apartment before me was a known Chinese dissident? Could I be arrested when I arrived in China?”
If there’s one place in the world very attuned to the idea that lots of people could have the same name and/or address, it’s China. There’s like a thousand people named “Wang Tao” in the Shanghai phone book alone. And household registration system notwithstanding, people move all over. So travel with confidence.
I do not have a particularly unusual first or last name, but I am to date the only one on the internet with the combination. My life since just after college pops up when you Google me. I often wish I had a slightly more common name, just because I feel so exposed. There’s nothing bad out there, it’s just more than most people need to know. It just seems like at this point it would be hard to undo. Leigh(Quote)
Rick Shuey says:
While it is distressing when information escapes a containment I had expected, I cannot logically reconcile a ‘there ought to be a law’ approach with Libertarian philosophy.
There is no ‘right to privacy’ in the Constitution.
If someone parks on the street, or rents the neighboring property, with a parabolic microphone aimed at my window, and I want to keep my conversations private, then I should put up a wall or install plywood curtains. Rick Shuey(Quote)
Sarah says:
I figure any employer foolish enough to decide not to hire you (for a non-political job) because of your political beliefs deserves his or her own resulting loss of productivity and standing in the community. See, also, American academia.
When I was young and foolish, I was online — I’ve been online since I was 6 years old (thanks, Daddy,) and every boneheaded, strange, silly thing I have ever done or said is accessible easily, because I’m the only person on Earth with my exact name. Googling me turns up bad poetry I wrote when I was 14 (pre-Google!), though I’m proud to say that it’s no longer on the first page of the results. It turns up online petitions I can’t remember why I signed in the first place, me raging about how annoying my little sisters were, etc. Every place I’ve lived since I was 11 shows up online, and there are over 20 addresses thanks to college and divorced parents and so forth.
Basically, the entire world has as much access to information about me as, in Ye Olden Times, anyone had about the vast majority of people they interacted with. Maybe the expectation that your employer, potential lovers, etc., don’t know anything about you is the weird part. Policing used to depend heavily on local enforcement simply knowing everyone, and distrusting heavily anyone they didn’t know, right?
Maybe we should consider the lack of this sort of privacy a solution to the trust/identity problems introduced by a modern, impersonal society. The government-power-abuse angle is really about the government having too much power, not so much about the use of publicly-available information. The problem with the USSR was that it was run by the Soviets — it was a problem when everything was on paper and you could make someone not exist, officially, by scratching him out of a photo, and your actual neighbor had to actually turn you in by actually reporting you on purpose specifically to someone in authority.
No internet is required for despotism to be terrifying and awful; the internet and corresponding lack of privacy is like having a tool in that bad guys can use it badly and good guys can use it well.
(having said all that, note how I don’t go around posting under my full name anymore...) Sarah(Quote)
Paul A'Barge says:
Or, just post anonymously under a pseudonym (long held tradition at the VC).
Hey, I just changed my name to Orin Kerr. Now I can really let my sarcasm freak flag fly. Paul A’Barge(Quote)
Steve says:
Ha! My name is so common that I get over 27 million hits on Google. Steve(Quote)
ASlyJD says:
Re: Combinations.
Mohammed is the most popular given name in the world. Wu is most common family name in the world.
Yet why doesn’t anyone know a Mohammed Wu? ASlyJD(Quote)
anonymous says:
Meh. Do what I did — if you don’t want people connecting your house with your name, create another legal entity to buy the house, give the money to that entity, buy the house, and then live in the house. When people search the records for the house, they don’t see your name, they see the name of the blind trust. When people search for your name, they find nothing.
Works a treat. anonymous(Quote)
uberVU - social comments says:
RebeccaH says:
I have such an ordinary name (in fact, one of my college professors hurtfully commented on it once) that there’s no reason to change it. There are gazillions of us, past and present, not to mention all the nicknames. Who knew that would be an advantage someday? RebeccaH(Quote)
theobromophile says:
Searching for [theobromophile] yields a lot of fan fiction, oddly enough. Apparently, my first and last name is that of a character in a novel; anyone who searches for my name can find all sorts of teenage soft porn fantasies about a secretary in a sci-fi world. theobromophile(Quote)
ASlyJD says:
Nice, theo. ASlyJD(Quote)
Ken Arromdee says:
And do you deserve the inability to eat and pay rent?
There’s a reason people get jobs, you know. When the employee suffers by being unemployed, it’s scant comfort that the employer is suffering by hiring a substandard employee–the guy who’s constantly not hired because he’s discriminated against suffers a heck of a lot more. Ken Arromdee(Quote)
Chris Newman says:
So I guess we’ll know Orin thinks he has something to hide if he suddenly changes his name to Deborah. Chris Newman(Quote)
old f*rt says:
ASlyJD@10:48 a.m.
Since you asked:
http://www.icgt.org/SpecialArticles/Countries.htm:
“A survey on common names revealed that the most common name in the world was Mohammed Wu, because of the number of Muslims in Oriental countries.”
And this:
http://www.spoke.com/info/pAOCYwA/MohammedWu old f*rt(Quote)
Sunday Sundries | Commentary says: