Did you ever google your user name?

[Lindagerr]

I have used this or a slight deviation from this user name in many places, so today I googled it to see what comes up. There were one or two items that had to do with me, but the majority of the items had to do with a court Guardian Ad Litem in MN. She is not very well liked and it made me wonder, will people connect me to this person because of my user name? Has anyone else tried to Google their user name?

[Outis]

All the time. :coolgleam: My name, other people's names, very useful tool.

[UptonSinclair]

I am not sure Googling my username is going to be very productive.

[ajs1976]

I have but not recently. I have used this name on forums for over 10 years, but it looks like a couple of years ago someone else started using it on twitter.

[cookderosa]

I hadn't but nothing unexpected came up except this: "In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org."

When I opened it, it was a copyright infringement for a photo of something used here. I was named along with 78 others from Degree Forum Wow. https://www.chillingeffects.org/notices/1857834

[dewisant]

Dewisant is Saint David, the patron saint of Wales.

[Lindagerr]

I have no idea how to remove it, but that is scary:ack:. I try to keep a low profile on the web sometimes I think having a common name like Jennifer Smith (I know 3) would make life easier or at least safer.

[Bibby]

It's definitely a good idea to Google your real name (and maiden names and other variants) and all of your online user names - and, of course, any businesses or nonprofits you're associated with - on a regular basis. I wouldn't do something as simple as choosing someone for a team project in one of my classes without Googling them first, so you can bet your bottom dollar that I'd do a Google-based background check before even considering a professional or romantic relationship with anyone.

As for my real name, I apparently share the same name as a local minister, another student who attended the same college as me, some guy who was accused of insurance fraud in the 90s, and a meth-addicted rapist. One of the reasons I made sure to establish an active social media presence is I wanted to make it clear that I wasn't the same person as the two unsavory characters who shared my same name and city. Fortunately, my own social media profiles now show up at the top of Google searches.

My DegreeForum name, which I use at a few other places, is so common that no one will ever find it through a simple Google search.

My other online user name is used on a bunch of different sites. A couple of other people have inactive accounts with the same name on other sites. It would take quite a bit of Googling to link my online identity with my real-life identity, and if they actually did that, they'd find that most of what I did was boring and essentially positive.

eddie4: It's tough to get stuff removed from the Internet. Try e-mailing whoever runs the site and asking - politely - for the information to be removed.

[SuZQ2]

Just came upon this very interesting thread...Googled the screen name I use here (one I do not use anywhere else) and came upon a few people who are definitely not me...I'd like to alter my screen name - how does one go about doing this?

This is the price you pay for being completely unimaginative when creating screen names. :p

[Lindagerr]

Since my Maiden name was as common as Smith there are 100's of them on linkedin alone. My name when married to my first husband translated to "pretty bed" so you can imagine what comes up when you google that. It is amazing how much information is available on line. I am happy to say there is nothing I need to be embarrassed about. I did find that the only real info is from either this forum or TESC where I was in a Signals write up many years ago. The good news is some of the free info like phone no. date of birth and such was a little incorrect so I do still have a few secrets.