My Crazy Thoughts
my thoughts on various topics.

anonymity

This being the internet I've tryed to keep myself relatively anonymous. Not so much so that people who know me and find my site won't know that it's me. I think it's very clear that I'm me, all you have to know if my first name and where I live, and you can pretty much be sure that I'm me. I do this for a couple reasons, first I think it would be creepy for a stranger to find my site and be able to google me, for someone to be able to find me and show up on my doorstep. I don't think this would ever actually happen, but it creeps me out so I do it anyway. I also do it because I'm a photo fanatic. I take a lot of pictures. And a lot of family pictures. So if someone could find me, they could potentially find all the minor children, whose pictures I post all over the internet. And finally, I don't want to make it too easy for people who know me, but not that well, to find me. Not that you can't find me if you work hard enough at it. However, it should be noted that my last name will never be posted here.

The other day, I had a hit on my site meter. It was the full name of a friend and then the city of our highschool. Since the hit came from where she is approximately, I will assume she googled herself, I do it all the time. Otherwise, Heather, someone googled you. This was interesting so I did the same thing for myself. I didn't expect to get any decent results becacuse, I don't post my last name anywhere. But I was wrong. You see, my last name also turns out to be a word, and I've apparently used that word in a post. So, when I typed in my name, ["first name" "last name" "highschool city"] I found myself. I am, in fact, the very first hit. Imagine my surprise. I guess I'm not as anonymous as I thought. Thankfully, if I omit the highschool city part, I am not listed on the first page of hits, or the first 10 for that matter.

posted by Malissa at 11:25 AM