NNSquad - Network Neutrality Squad
[ NNSquad ] Re: Report: Google CEO predicts name-changing option at adulthood
On 8/16/2010 6:42 PM, Lauren Weinstein wrote:
Report: Google CEO predicts name-changing option at adulthood http://bit.ly/acXA7V (Read Write Web) --Lauren-- NNSquad Moderator Schmidt's idea is definitely thought-provoking, but after that extremely brief initial thought, silly. One can see that with the advent of a fully indexed collection of on-line social networking exchanges, especially by young people not really thinking about the implications in the future, we could easily end up with an entire generation of people that would be, given a quick Google search, "un-hirable or un-electable" by today's standards. Ignoring the fact that this would simply result in changing today's standards, it does make Schmidt's idea sound useful, and not unlike laws which wipe a child's criminal record at 18. But after a brief pause, one realizes that search technology (something Schmidt should know a bit about) would most likely be able to connect a child's adolescent name with his or her post-Rumspringa name (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rumspringa). Especially given the fact that name changes would be a matter of public record, and more and more public records are online and search-able. Actually, one could argue easily that they all should be online and search-able, as the Internet is the modern day equivalent of publication in a newspaper or recording in a town hall ledger. I mean really, Google's not going to be able to figure out a name change, but it can predict what I'm searching for as I type into the address bar of Chrome? Even if legislation prohibited use of "adolescent name change" records for such search connections, the wealth of online information in social networks would make it easy to connect old names with new. And consider the social networking fun: John Smith: Hey, everyone here, please "friend" my new profile under "Jon Smith" -- I just did the "new name at 18" thing! |