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Ask HN: Do you care about your digital footprint? Why/why not?

5 points by lionhearted ↗ HN
It strikes me that a lot of us have niche interests. If you browse Hacker News, a couple other small technology sites, and then mix in a hobby or two, you've got a pretty recognizable digital footprint that people can follow around.

That's before even getting into Facebook, Twitter, and Google following you around the internet.

I've never thought this over very much - I think I don't particularly care, but has anyone thought through all the implications and made any behavior changes because of it?

6 comments

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vln
I've basically locked down my Facebook to where no one can see any tagged photos of me. I don't fill out any of my interests/hobbies and I limit who I add as a friend.

Google has me by the balls though. I'm sure they know me better than any other person alive through my searches, email, and google reader subscriptions.

I don't like it, but I'm also not overly concerned since I'm not doing anything to get me into any sort of trouble.

tokenadult
I'm long over worrying about that. For public policy discussion posts I made on an old commercial online service, back before I had a true Internet account, I got harassing phone calls. Just in the last year I've received harassing phone calls for my Wikipedia editing. (This, by the way, is one reason I don't trust Wikipedia as an information source on some controversial subjects. Some ideologues fight dirty to control the content there, and Wikipedia management does nothing about that.) I just go on being myself, and cherish time in the real world with my real-life friends.
shii
Yep, several separate identities concurrently online. Each with their own emails, separate IPs via different VPNs (usually), and narratives to run..
radioactive21
Yea. You can't completely avoid it but I try to minimize it as much as I can.

I have separate emails for a ton of things. I create fake personas for anything I think that does not need to know my true identity.

I do not fill out profiles of anything. When I sign up it's just my name and everything else is as minimal as possible.

michaelperalta
The digital footprint does not worry me as much as I believe it worries others. What this new exposure to social media and to internet tracking itself has made us basically minor celebrities. With that in mind you can learn a lot from the way current celebrities and powerful people in business have carried out their own lives. People who have had their situations ruined by social media or the internet were, for the most part, doing things that if they were found doing offline would get them in trouble too. The thing people have to realize is that the internet can only harm you to a certain extent but the way it harms you is only by bringing to light the actions you've already committed. If you take a look at the way certain scandals through social media and internet break down, anything that you have the ability to whole heartedly apologize for and is for the most part understandable to the public will not affect you that greatly. You will go through a small period of judgement and that is it. Then there are the Weiner's of the world, no pun intended, that do things beyond the scope of apology and they are punished. If you can learn anything from social media its content control. You can control what you do on facebook through your privacy settings and you can control what you do in your life through your own actions. If you really want to stay off the radar then disconnect from technology. Besides that the fear of the internet is pretty much overhyped.