In my research of my digital footprint, I have discovered that I may be somewhat of a homebody. I say this because I was not at all surprised by what I found out about where and what I had been doing. I am fortunate to have a pretty unique name. There are very few Emmetts with this spelling, and the only Wemps I have ever known of are in my own family.
I have googled my name a few times to see what would pop up, and about the only thing that is questionable is that there is a radio station in New York with the call letters of WEMP. Even in that realm, there wasn’t much going on. In the course assignment, we were given a website to check out what was available out on the web. Peekyou.com included personal addresses and phone numbers, arrest records, and email addresses. I did notice that it was not completely accurate on a lot of the social media aspects. I included my typical username in the search, and it found a lot of other users who had similar usernames. It also found a lot of expired addresses, such as the house I rented in college – 14 years ago!
In reviewing other resources and information, the thing that really made me think was getting tagged in others photos and videos. In this Youtube video by NBC 10 WJAR News called Your Digital Footprint May Be Unflattering, college students are tasked with doing a search on their digital footprint. They thought they had privacy settings set up correctly, but their party pictures still got out. One student even was tagged in another users post at a party, and that is what stuck to him even though all he did was be in the room. (nothing wrong with that)
I think the moral to the story is that with most HR organizations doing searches on their potential hires, you need to make sure what they find is what you would want them to find. I didn’t find anything bad or damaging, but I found it interesting that it is so simple for someone else to essentially ruin your reputation online.-image courtesy of :digitalfamilysummit.com
Here are my strategies for maintaining your Digital footprint.
I have googled my name a few times to see what would pop up, and about the only thing that is questionable is that there is a radio station in New York with the call letters of WEMP. Even in that realm, there wasn’t much going on. In the course assignment, we were given a website to check out what was available out on the web. Peekyou.com included personal addresses and phone numbers, arrest records, and email addresses. I did notice that it was not completely accurate on a lot of the social media aspects. I included my typical username in the search, and it found a lot of other users who had similar usernames. It also found a lot of expired addresses, such as the house I rented in college – 14 years ago!
In reviewing other resources and information, the thing that really made me think was getting tagged in others photos and videos. In this Youtube video by NBC 10 WJAR News called Your Digital Footprint May Be Unflattering, college students are tasked with doing a search on their digital footprint. They thought they had privacy settings set up correctly, but their party pictures still got out. One student even was tagged in another users post at a party, and that is what stuck to him even though all he did was be in the room. (nothing wrong with that)
I think the moral to the story is that with most HR organizations doing searches on their potential hires, you need to make sure what they find is what you would want them to find. I didn’t find anything bad or damaging, but I found it interesting that it is so simple for someone else to essentially ruin your reputation online.-image courtesy of :digitalfamilysummit.com
Here are my strategies for maintaining your Digital footprint.