You know how many times someone checks the internet to check up on you? Every time you apply for a car loan, a mortgage, buy life insurance. Someone reviewing your file is probably going to Google you. It's not rare, it's the norm.

I check every potential employee this way and have for the last 6 years.

You know how many times someone checks the internet

Just look at how many times your own name will show up in your own server logs as a query (assuming your name appears on your website, in an "About" page for example) -- that is not always an old girlfriend/boyfriend who is just dying to know how their lost love is doing in life. Sometimes, it's the bank, or your boss, or even worse -- the person who has a gripe, and is looking for a little ammo.

Moral of story: Don't give 'em any, at FB or anywhere else.

........................

I know college students (neices and nephews) that thought having a Facebook account was a MUST three years ago. Then it was opened up to everyone, which took away that "special" feel to these accounts. Who wants to be on Facebook with their mom - Seriously?

This is very true. I'm similar to your niece and nephew. I joined back in 03 when you were required to have a valid college email address to sign up. We used it as a way to communicate up-coming parties, events, etc... and keep track of what our friends were doing.

These days, my Mom, Dad, Aunts, Uncles, Boss, etc... are on FB. You really have to be careful about what you post.

The young people will move on to the next great thing and leave FB like MySpace.

You know how many times someone checks the internet to check up on you? Every time you apply for a car loan, a mortgage, buy life insurance. Someone reviewing your file is probably going to Google you. It's not rare, it's the norm.

Which is why with much of my online public identities, I take the chorus from the Simon and Garfunkel song to heart. Lie Lie Lie, Lie Lie Lie...

Google and Facebook together will force new legislation for online privacy. They won't push for it themselves, but rather they'll compell congress to do that with their over reaching marketing initiatives.

I'm no fan of government stepping into our lives, but I'm not fan of the status quo either.

As far as Matt goes, I already dropped some Google accounts I had to and am making minimal use of their services as well and am working on making that even less.

A gaggle of Google engineers

So what is the correct collective noun for a group of Google enginers then?

You might note that Google Guy (whoever that was) once fleed WebmasterWorld.

When / how did that happen?

Would you hire a webmaster when you find out he doesn't have his own website?

Would you hire an SEO expert when you find out you can't find him on the web?

When dealing with staffers, partners, clients, etc., I look at their presence: do they have websites? Are they findable? Are they on LinkedIn and Facebook?

It tells a great deal about their awareness and sophistication.

Sure, you can lie. But what happens when a potential employer, client (or even a potential girlfriend) realizes that you lied? That's even worse than not being on the web at all (i.e., a luser).

Look at LinkedIn. It's become the industry standard for professionals. If you're a manager, director, or higher, you'd better be in LinkedIn. And it has to be accurate, just like a resume.

The issue of fake profiles is minor; I've read that only about 3% of people lie about their income, education, etc. in surveys.

This is another way in which FB and Li (LinkedIn) are changing the web. Google wasn't able to do this. It could only index the web, but it didn't have much impact on the content. FB and Li are adding people's identities (and social persona) to the web. When you go to a page, you see your friends also know that page. The web becomes personalized.

Or is it because of this? [news.smh.com.au ]

Never was a member of facebook, never will, I always had this feeling that Privacy there is a no no, hmm like google.

Kind of reminds me of when the Google street view driver got all mad at somebody for taking pictures of his car with the camera on top...

Sure, you can lie. But what happens when a potential employer, client (or even a potential girlfriend) realizes that you lied? That's even worse than not being on the web at all (i.e., a luser).

I didn't make my point properly. Yes you need to be honest on your website if you are a business etc. Anything less than professional, i.e. for fun, goofing of cutting up, stuff like that that is mostly harmless, but you don't want bad people building a profile on you or good people knowing every move you make, use an alias, different aliases etc.

By lying it can be simply not full disclosure - an alias, but more often different ages, locations, incomes etc all serve to obfuscate to some extent.

I google my name, I don't have a big result set, but what's there is what I wanted there. Maybe that means I'm doing something right, maybe it means I haven't pissed enough people off :)

Is lying morally wrong, yes. What about when it'd done to protect you identity in and online world that doesn't respect your privacy? The marketers sure as hell don't respect you, why cater to them?

[edited by: CrustyAdmin at 4:34 pm (utc) on Apr 26, 2010]

It tells a great deal about their awareness and sophistication.

And for people who put up pictures of themselves at tailgating parties, with their shirt off, holding a fifth of Jack Daniels in the air with 4 other equally toasted yahoos, it says something about their lack of technology awareness.

The point is not that these social networking sites should be avoided, rather, common sense should prevail. When you willingly surrender your privacy, bad things CAN happen and often DO happen -- it's the way of the world.

...........................

Look at LinkedIn. It's become the industry standard for professionals. If you're a manager, director, or higher, you'd better be in LinkedIn. And it has to be accurate, just like a resume.

I am a professional and I'm not in linked in. I did not realize that it was a requirement. I didn't get the memo.

#Ujang

That article mentioning the sale of millions of FB login details by a alleged Russian / NZ hacker cites the New York Times, but no NYT article speaking about this incident was found.

There is an article from the SF Chronicle & PC World stating this:

Verisign's iDefense Labs has discovered a website that lists some 1.5 million compromised Facebook accounts "for sale." The selling price is $25 per 1000 accounts with ten friends or less, and $45 per 1,000 for those accounts with more than ten friends. does, so I guess this is true.

Either way, this is - and will continue to be - quite interesting.

There are plenty of reasons to leave FB,

There certainly are. I did it last year and after the first months of people acting like I was weird, they've all started to leave. My prophetic visions are telling me that around the 500 million mark uptake of Facebook will slow dramatically and the percentage of inactive accounts will increase month over month.

The awful stories are now snowballing just like the "wow, look at this!" did at the start of Facebook's take off.

Facebook founders and investors will be looking for that all-important sale very, very soon. Probably for much less than they were expecting.

Breaking: Pepsi Chairman slams Coke, will drink Pepsi from now on :)

I don't think it's quite the same. More like:

"July 2009 -- Google Cola Chairman enjoys Facebook Cola and Twitter Cola but insists Google Cola is working on a new recipe."

Followed by:

"April 2010 -- Google Cola Chairman and thousands of others put off by new Facebook bitter flavour. Popularity of Google-Twitter blend increases."

Facebook is headed for an IPO. Why? The VCs want their money.

Most people don't realize how much VC money has been put into FB.

775 big ones. Yep, $775 million. That many VCs have bet the farm on FB and they want to flip their money. Is it sustainable? Will the model work? Who gives a damn? They just want their money.

$775m sounds like serious money. It can't go wrong, can't it? Or can't it? A startup with that much VC money can't fail.

No, wait... I've heard this song before. Remember? It's a sweet little tune, and it goes like this (y'all can join in!):

"Gather 'round, children,
and hear the story
of a billion dollar startup
way down in Silicon Land.

Oh, yeah, it can't fail,
No way, it can't fail,
'cos so many VCs
got their hands in the pot!"

Yep, that song is "Good Ship Webvan!"

It was like the Yucatan meteor: the collapse of Webvan took the whole damned valley with it. 5,000 startups were destroyed in the dot.com crash.

It'd be pretty odd if Facebook kills Google and then collapses.

Eurydice, I tend to agree with you. Almost 800 million makes them nervous and they need to cash while FB is the rage. Valuations can easily evaporate if trends change (myspace for example)

VCs probably lose in most start-ups but make it up with huge hits like Google, FB etc.

Deactivated mine long ago. Personal and professional just don't mix well on the web. I don't think Facebook was ever meant to foster a professional presence, it's more of a social site.

So, if the Google execs have something to hide then they were using Facebook for the wrong reasons.

Even went further and now use an alias for everything, never my real name.

@MRHard - From my own experience, Facebook isn't the best social net tool for business. It's great for personal use though, and that's what I keep it as.

Almost 800 million makes them nervous

Can you imagine the VC's faces that morning the $850million Bebo went up for sale for $1million! They must have been cleaning coffee out of their laptops the rest of the day ... ;)

Facebook's revenues were $700 million in 2009.
They may reach 1.1 Billion in 2010.

[insidefacebook.com...]

Revenue before expenses is not the number that makes a company valuable.

Quite true. I read that in late summer 2009, FB was cash-flow positive, i.e., they were no longer losing money.

I think the point is that FB has revenue, unlike Twitter, etc.

Just deactivate the feature 'share your data with third-party sites'. However, it is hard to find the setting, and harder to know that we are sharing.

Ouch! [wired.com...]

Like Bill, I toked once. I didn't inhale. :)

Facebook, myspace, too, scared me from day one. Odd thing is there's some 400M folks out there who don't see things the same way. :(

Are you freaking kidding me? Checking up on people over the internet is the greatest tool for you to leave your name exactly where you WANT it to be and make yourself look exactly the way you want.

For example, fall out as a charitable, trustworthy person. Sign at such forums, groups and leave your name left and right. Leave comments in your favor. Link to the urls bearing your precious blessed soul posts ensuring they hit top 100 results in google. Create fake FB/twitter, you name it accounts and do you own PR for a few days.

You'll make yourself look like jackpot, like the employer's grand prize of the year, like a candidate for the next Nobel freaking prize.

Just don't overdo it. Go at it gently, just enough to fool them all - if fooling is needed that is.

So don't be afraid of your name being displayed anywhere for your future employers, banks, insurance companies to see. Be happy that someone invented the internet, a tool, to fool navive detective wanna be employers.

Period.