Just prior to graduation, I did a Google search for myself to see what would come up in the event a potential employer I was sending my resume to decided to do the same. Not only did I see my PRSSA involvement and a few articles I had written, I also found an article from a local independent paper that runs an annual haiku contest - in a fit of boredom and homework avoidance, my roommate and I submitted some haiku of our own, and much to our amusement, found our creative attempts published. There was nothing negative or incriminating about this, but it showed me just how much information can be gathered on a person based on just one page of Google search results.
This morning I saw a posting on CNN.com about a girl who got her teaching certificate and education degree taken away days before graduation on account of some content on her MySpace page. The story does not mention how her supervisors found the posting, but I think this is a great warning for us all to exercise a little caution when choosing our words and photos to share with the world.
Watch the video.
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This warning is spot-on correct, IMO. Online content simply doesn't go away -- even deleted blog posts, for example, linger around in search-engine archives and are accessible to whoever might be looking closely enough.
In the near future, it won't be "I can't get this job because my old myspace profile was embarassing," it'll be "I can't run for office because of some stuff I posted before I was in politics."
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