Protecting Your Online Reputation

[BOT#00001]

So we were talkin in TS about the affects your online presence can have on getting/keeping jobs. Every year, more and more companies use Google in lieu of legit background checks to look people up.

Here is one of the culprits:

Social Intelligence

For a small fee, they will do a full social media report which breaks it down into categories. Things like propensity to violence(pictures of you holding a gun) or being linked to controversial groups.

And now Raytheon has new software out that is just as terrifying, called Rapid Information Overlay Technology (RIOT).

How secretly developed software became capable of tracking people's movements online - YouTube

A good way to start limiting your online footprint, is to start here.
How to remove yourself from online background checks
While a pain in the ass to take care of, it's worth it.

This combined with never using your real name, age, or actual secret question answers is a good start. Turn off tagging and lock your social media profiles down. Last but not least, I found this cool little website that grades your online footprint.

Brand Yourself

That site not only limits anything negative you may have out there, it helps you elevate the links you DO want to be found (such as linkdin).

 

[NotAnalGrap]

Great post. I hadn't seen that site before, but I am checking it out now.

More advice: Also look up the names of your spouse and family. Their "profiles" on the people search sites can also contain info about you.
After reading a fantastic article on life hacker, I spent about 3 hours one night removing the traces of myself and my wife from the internet - except for social media.

I have a Google + account, because I want my name and picture to be a place holder. I used to have facebook, but after the 100th privacy change I just shut it down. Life without facebook has been good - going on 7 months!

Edit: Here is a great site I used last year. http://adjustyourprivacy.com/

 

[BOT#00001]

I have a Google + account, because I want my name and picture to be a place holder.

Yah thats the way to go. It's almost like a honeypot sort of thing. The people searching your name want something. If they cant find you at all, they're going to dig really deep. But if you throw them a bone, and control what they see...well then you control how you're perceived.

 

[ChuckTheHammer]

+1 on everything. My wife has had to rescind contract offers from people and even fired one because of personal posts being too personal and unprofessional (while being too accessible). While that may sound shitty, her people must be beyond reproach in order for them to be able to perform their job, and anything that gets in the way of that means her company will not spend the oodles they do on someone.

 

[bracketslash]

So, being a young lad, what all would you guys recommend for me to do so that future employers do not deny me upon application?

 

[BOT#00001]

So, being a young lad, what all would you guys recommend for me to do so that future employers do not deny me upon application?

Well like I said. Control what they see. Go through all of your profiles across the web. From a random mp3 site, to a gaming forum you posted on when you were 12. Change your name on there to something else, your location, and change your age/birthday. This makes it harder to cross reference you. Then delete your name from public records aggregators like whitepages.com or intelius.com. It's hard to do because they want to make it difficult so as to dissuade you from doing it. On facebook, don't use a photo showing your face as your public picture. Remove the ability to be tagged, lock your pictures, and make sure any pictures that you have up you aren't doing anything shady. No pics of you drinking, with drug paraphernalia or in anything that could be polarizing. Remove ALL your pages likes and be careful what you comment on. Like if someone posts something that's anti Bush or anti obama, I try not to reply to it. Keep googling your name and your most used username to find other traces of yourself. Then start searching combos of the two, or your name and town you live in. Once all that is done, make accounts which present a positive public face. Linkedin and Google+ would be good starts, as both moved pretty high up in search results. People don't want to work too hard doing searches, and if you give them some low hanging fruit, they'll take it.

 

[bracketslash]

Well my name happens to be the same name as a college football player so he is the majority of results when searching for my name. So am I in the clear?

 

[NotAnalGrap]

Well my name happens to be the same name as a college football player so he is the majority of results when searching for my name. So am I in the clear?

Don't worry as much about how hard or easy it is to find. Worry about the content. For example, my google+ page doesn't have anything opinion related, but I allow most of it to be public. I post business or food related stuff. But thats about it. If you google my name, there is some guy from Australia who has a bunch of stuff that takes over the top half of google, but I'm buried in there.

 

[BOT#00001]

Well my name happens to be the same name as a college football player so he is the majority of results when searching for my name. So am I in the clear?

It definitely helps in making it more difficult for those who don't know what they're doing to find traces of you. The only problem is if you get someone with anything more than the most basic knowledge in search engine methods.

For instance, if I want to get rid of those hits, all I have to do is change my search from

"Bob Smith"
to
"Bob Smith" -football

Now, I've probably removed 95% of the hits that are in reference to the football player with the same name.