Every couple of months or so I Google my name to see what comes up. I see the few people who share my name who have died, I see places that I’ve been years ago but the web page isn’t dead, and I occasionally see my name in a place that I think it shouldn’t be.  I Bing my name as well, but that always seems to yield fewer pages.  In some ways, that isn’t disparaging to Bing because the choices seem more relevant.

After I run searches on my name, I then run searches on my online aliases; yes, my aliases. A large number of people have more than one identity on the web and people who only have one identity are quickly realizing that they need more than one. One identity doesn’t suffice when your information is held in a global forum to which millions of people have free access. When employers started to do credit checks on potential employees people freaked out, their feelings being that inspecting a person’s personal finances was irrelevant, or at least too intimate a look for someone who didn’t even write you a paycheck. Now a credit check is standard in many industries just like a criminal background check is standard for different fields.

(an image of the trail I leave on vacation)

Yet all of those things are simply numbers and yes/no—credit check good, credit check bad, felonies yes, felonies no. Today a person can search your name and come up with an image or video attached to your name, images and video on the web to which you may be completely unaware. People routinely tag photos on Facebook or another social network, upload videos to YouTube, put pictures on Picasa, and attach your name to everything. This is great for organizing pictures for church picnics, office parties, and family outings. This makes it easier for friends and family to share information about each other’s lives and track annual changes as we grow in our relationships and get closer over time.

It also makes it easier for everyone to see what you do. Everyone.  In the past it was the social security number.  Get the SSN and you’ve got everything. Now they just need your name and then they can get an entire personal profile through normal organic keyword searches. This has hurt some people; the flight attendant who was goofing off in the empty jet and posted the pictures online; the teachers who were out on vacation who subsequently had students discover their online album; the blogger who complained about his job; and the politician who… no need to finish that sentence.

Our online selves, or at least my online self, have built in layers of intimacy.  Small children are quick to pick up on the fact that people are much more polite with strangers than they are with people who know them better and my online self is designed that way. My real name is always in a nice sanitized environment with nice, pretty-as-a-picture pictures that project an image of responsibility, confidence, and a high moral standard.  Then the layers change and there is an intimate web persona that strangers, or potential employers, could never discover through any random searches. An organic search would never turn up my true political thoughts, true effectiveness in the workplace, and my true moral compass.

I like that an organic search could never reveal those things. Ensconced in a world with instant communication through computers, portable media players, and smartphones, I like that people have to talk to me to learn about my politics, to work with me to see how truly good I am at my profession, and to be with me to discern the strength of my character as they see my moral choices.

Some people may view my preference as a preference that wishes to hide something, to not be honest about who I am, but it really is about being intimate with people. With people becoming increasingly web-reliant for their communication, our transparency of personality becomes increasingly harder to manage as we try to insulate ourselves from those to whom we are not intimate.

If you don’t have more than one web persona you should make one. Make one for your friends and family because your boss doesn’t need to know how your niece has grown up to be a truly beautiful woman.