Difference between revisions of "Catherine Grillo"

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	==<big>Conclusion</big>==		==<big>Conclusion</big>==
−	While I can see both positives and negatives regarding the ease of obtaining personal information, I feel that the negative outcomes for having an abundance of personal information about you easily accessible on the internet outweigh the positive outcomes. Having my address, or anyone’s address, displayed could be dangerous for a multitude of reasons. Displaying a full interactive google map of my house – including street view – and the surrounding area takes this one step further. I now feel as if nothing is truly private. Looking forward, I should be more careful about what I put online because clearly there is a great deal of information about me. For example, my Twitter account was one thing that appeared in all three search engines. Maybe I could de-activate this account since I have not used it in two years. This would probably get rid of most of the pictures displayed on Google Images of me and this action would also remove a link result from Ecosia and Bing. This is just a small first step in the right direction. FastPeopleSearch has a section in their Privacy Policy that allows users to request to delete their information that is not gathered by third parties, and there is also an option to opt-out of the sale of personal information to third parties. FastPeopleSearch explains they have a right to deny this request, but I think if I requested to have my personal information deleted from this site, it would be a good next step in minimizing my online identity.	+	While I can see both positives and negatives regarding the ease of obtaining personal information, I feel that the negative outcomes for having an abundance of personal information easily accessible on the internet outweigh the positive outcomes. Having my address, or anyone’s address, displayed could be dangerous for a multitude of reasons. Displaying a full interactive google map of my house – including street view – and the surrounding area takes this one step further. I now feel as if nothing is truly private. Looking forward, I should be more careful about what I put online because clearly there is a great deal of information about me. For example, my Twitter account was one thing that appeared in all three search engines. Maybe I could de-activate this account since I have not used it in two years. This would probably get rid of most of the pictures displayed on Google Images of me and this action would also remove a link result from Ecosia and Bing. This is just a small first step in the right direction. FastPeopleSearch has a section in their Privacy Policy that allows users to request to delete their information that is not gathered by third parties, and there is also an option to opt-out of the sale of personal information to third parties. FastPeopleSearch explains they have a right to deny this request, but I think if I requested to have my personal information deleted from this site, it would be a good next step in minimizing my online identity.

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Revision as of 00:48, 19 February 2021

I have always been pretty active online, so when I searched myself on Google, I was not surprised to see that I did not need to do much of a “deep dive” to find information about myself. Additionally, I would say that my first name is common, so I was expecting to see many people named Catherine pop up that were not me. While this was the case, it was still very easy to find photos of myself from high school, sports statistics, and social media accounts. One concern I had when first searching myself is that Google already knows who I am because I use the search engine regularly. To mitigate this information Google has on me, I decided to search myself on an incognito browser. I would like to think that an incognito browser helps with a fresh start on Google because I was not logged into my account, meaning there was no browsing history for Google to reference. I also used different search engines to compare results. The results from my Google search were troubling, yet at the same time, completely unsurprising. I will admit, it is unsettling to know that someone can easily find all my addresses, my relatives, and my demographic information from a simple Google search. I knew I would be able to find social media accounts, like LinkedIn, but I did not expect to find very personal information and also personal familial information. A general theme I noticed throughout my searching is that I had a feeling of unsettlement from being able to find so much information about myself in such a short amount of time. And not only was there an abundance of information, but it was completely accurate as well.

Search Engines

Google Search

I broke my Google search down into a couple of different categories. First, I searched just my name. Second, I searched my name and my hometown. I was planning on doing more variations but these two queries were all it took to find an alarming amount of information about me. While searching just my name, my social media accounts appeared with pictures I have posted over the years. Additionally, I was able to find my Medium account for this class and the blogs I have posted. More interestingly, my unlisted softball recruitment YouTube videos appeared as one of the first results. From just this basic search, many things can be uncovered about me like my university, my jobs, my major, where I am from, pictures of me, as well as all of my social media accounts.

My second query yielded more troubling results. After searching both my name and my hometown, it seemed that I was able to find out essentially everything I needed to know about myself. In particular, a profile of me on FastPeopleSearch was one of the first results. This had my address, age, a map of where my house is, my past addresses, and an in-depth list of my relatives. I was very taken aback by these results. I expected to find pictures of myself online from years of social media use and articles from high school track and softball, but I never would have suspected that it would be so easy to find my home address for free. It was alarmingly easy to find, as it was one of the first things I saw.

Ecosia Search

After the troubling results from Google, I was not excited to start my search on the second search engine, Ecosia. However, I was pleasantly surprised when the only thing that appeared that was about me when I searched my name was an old softball recruitment video about offensive highlights and my high school track statistics. I did not see any of my social media accounts, just accounts for different people with my name or similar names. When I searched my name paired with my hometown, my LinkedIn and Twitter accounts appeared. Additionally, more statistics from high school sports appeared. Information about my father also was in the results. I found this strange because even though I searched my own name, my father’s name came up. I assume that Ecosia somehow knew I was related to this particular Vincent Grillo.

While exploring images, I found that Ecosia displayed no images of me, just a link to an unlisted YouTube video about softball recruitment that included an image of me. This is in stark contrast to Google that had multiple images of me appear, as well as images I have posted on social media of friends.

Bing Search

Lastly, I explored a search engine I have never liked, Bing. Yet again, I was surprised to find that upon searching only my full name, very little information about me specifically was displayed. Among a heap of other Catherines, Katherines, and Cathys, the only thing displayed about me was my softball recruitment video filmed in high school – a general theme I am seeing at this point is that this video is very persistent. When I searched my full name paired with my town, the same information as Ecosia appeared. However, to my surprise, a little profile of myself was displayed on the side of the page that had my school, major, LinkedIn account, work experience, and a “People Also Searched For” section. Bing claims this information is from LinkedIn, but how did it grab the names of people I do not know and have not connected with on LinkedIn? There were no pictures of me displayed in the images section, but I would almost rather there be pictures than an in-depth profile down the side of the search results page. What is most troubling to me is that I have never heard of some of the people listed in this section.

My Online Identity

My Information Across Platforms

When I started this online data identity journey, I expected the information found about me across different search engines to be relatively stable, or equal. I was very surprised and confused to see that this was not the case. Why did FastPeopleSearch appear only on my Google search? How did FastPeopleSearch get so much of my personal information? How did Google know who my relatives were? Why did Bing associate me with people I have never heard of? It feels as though my questions will never be answered. The only search engine I was not troubled by was Ecosia, much less information about me appeared on this search engine.

It is strange that one search engine can hold an abundance of sensitive information, while others might display harmless, surface-level information. The question of whether or not publicly displaying where I live is ethical, plagues me. It is unsettling to know anyone can look up my name and hometown and one of the first things that displays will be my address.

Information Accuracy

The information I found about myself on the search engines was completely accurate. From social media accounts to my sports statistics, to my addresses, to my university. The only mildly incorrect information I found was when Bing created a “People Also Searched For” section on the side of my search results. There were a few people in that section that I do not know, so I wonder how Bing found those people, and why the search engine thought I was associated with them in any way. The accuracy of this information is only mildly troubling because I expected to find accurate information. The only unpleasant surprise was that I found more accurate and specific information than I was expecting.

Conclusion

While I can see both positives and negatives regarding the ease of obtaining personal information, I feel that the negative outcomes for having an abundance of personal information easily accessible on the internet outweigh the positive outcomes. Having my address, or anyone’s address, displayed could be dangerous for a multitude of reasons. Displaying a full interactive google map of my house – including street view – and the surrounding area takes this one step further. I now feel as if nothing is truly private. Looking forward, I should be more careful about what I put online because clearly there is a great deal of information about me. For example, my Twitter account was one thing that appeared in all three search engines. Maybe I could de-activate this account since I have not used it in two years. This would probably get rid of most of the pictures displayed on Google Images of me and this action would also remove a link result from Ecosia and Bing. This is just a small first step in the right direction. FastPeopleSearch has a section in their Privacy Policy that allows users to request to delete their information that is not gathered by third parties, and there is also an option to opt-out of the sale of personal information to third parties. FastPeopleSearch explains they have a right to deny this request, but I think if I requested to have my personal information deleted from this site, it would be a good next step in minimizing my online identity.