Personal names, identity, given valid or legitimate family name, representation, vanity search, profiles, intimate, individual and personal details online, security, identity theft, domain name squatting and homesteading privacy |
jeffrey james cook | unique name identifier | personal meta data |
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Personal Name Overview |
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| The web gets stranger every day - and also more crucial to the digital or virtual online self image, identity or representation of our individual selves "received" or "accepted" as valid or legitimate by others; through social interest search - with either good or bad intentions. These new social ways of finding out about others includes database search, career search, obsessive search, vanity search, and the many variations of search that people and machines (automated web bots, etc) carry out when conducting a search on or when recording details related to your personal, family or children's name. What will others find when they search for your name or other personal details online? Why not try it yourself now? Who, or what name, appears first, or on the first page in search engine results pages (SERPs)? Like a digital tragedy of the commons, unique names are both scarce and - at the name time - highly sought after: two inconsistent aims or objectives leading to unnecessary confusion and conflict over who "owns" a unique name or identifier. There must surely be a better way to manage names and identity, Without appropriate government intervention and legislation to remove or lessen potential confusion (mistaken identity) and conflict (litigation) over unique personal names then the law of the jungle pertains. Meanwhile, you are likely destined to bid for your name in an online auction (e.g. ebay, google, overture, etc), or fight for your name in the courts. With law makers out of the picture and out of action, this untenable situation becomes the de facto or default procedure for obtaining an online individual, personal or family name and identity. Is this acceptable when your own name is at stake? Your new identity is your records, trace or profile on the web. And because of the power of search engines and other information navigation devices such as Wikipedia, you are your search results. These results are ranked based on any online records or references to your name. People viewing online references to you, and search results on your name, form an opinion of you and your worth. What if people did a "social" search on *you* most times? - before you met, when you went for a job, if you write a justifiable complaint to a neighbour, to a local, state or federal government department or official, to a commercial organisation, to the police, or to a politician, acquaintance, etc. In the world of the immediate and mobile search future, social decorum will likely require proper "search before contact". |
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A recent example of social search is the sales blurb to sell a new book on search engines on the Amazon book site:
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Your own name is an open and yet scarce online resource; an asset, and a set of keyword terms, domain names, or references on the web. Any person or organisation can claim your name exclusively as their own "property", like a kind of personal name Trademark or Copyright using superior financial and legal resources to register or permanently "lock up" a name - sometimes even after you have registered it for your own use by taking it from you! (only the fittest survive). In addition, the "after market" in domain names registered by domain name squatters, homesteaders or parasites is growing. Similar to ticket scalpers, the rule of "first in, first served" applies, where names registered to invalid applicants by the domain name registrars are then offered for sale - if offered at all - to you (and other parties) at an elevated price. |
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Securing Your Personal Name |
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Personal names - including your own name - can be "secured" online through:
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Online Identity Issues |
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| 1. Your online self - records of your online activities and history present a growing problem in terms of you managing the authentic representation of your online self; your profile, persona, identity or presence. With search going mobile we are bound to become more reliant on third-party, digital, search, online and other rankings or ratings of our selves - as a benchmark or reference in the ever-expanding universe of information and data where it is important to sort out the valid from the invalid information. 2. R U your posts? - We should be concerned about the career implications or consequences, of any online traces or records you leave behind. Once placed online and available in the public domain, the record can persist for years. Not only can reformatted hard drives, USB drives, disks and deleted files stored at remote sites be reconstructed and the "deleted" information recovered, when you mail, post, sms/text, chat (yes records of chat are kept) or in any way put your self *on the line* online you add to and construct the persistent online trace that is your online representation. 3. Someone else's opinion about you - means other people - second parties - are relying on someone else's "opinion" (or validation) of you over which you have little control. So when someone wants to find you, or find out about you, they will search on your name and the "most relevant" - read "valid" name - will appear at the top of the rankings of the search engine page results (SERPs). As most folks don't look much beyond the first page SERPs, then if you don't appear there then perhaps you aren't "valid" or real ? "You" are - for all intents and purposes - not "really you". The unique position of "valid" (the most valid or "the winner") in the name game really belongs to the single name that appears at the top of the rankings and on the first page SERPs. To appear in the top rankings for a name search your blog, website, etc, needs to be, at least:
Emotional and other online traces of your self - a brief (and usually, inconsequential) moment of and emotional or other indiscretion five or so years ago! may result in your being denied employment after the careers consultant finds a copy of an old blog or email listed in a search engine's results pages (SERPs), or perhaps in a cache several months old, or in a copy someone made and posted elsewhere, even though you have deleted the original blog or email long ago. This is especially the case for younger people whose online presence and identity are more pervasive, and for anyone who (over?) enthusiastically and passionately blogs, posts or emails, replies to or relays or "republishes" information; polemically pushing an argument, issue or cause they deem important, trying to engage in a valid civic debate or exchange, or other form of online communication. The legal and career consequences of a persistent blog or other online post or record can now extend to the international domain if your blog defames or brings into disrepute individuals or companies operating in international locations. There may be issues caused by comments, either your own, or by another's comments that your "republish" or place on your own blog, website, etc. 5. Personal and identity digital security panic - in 2006 there was a nearly 200% increase in the reporting of privacy and security issues in the online and offline news and media. If this is a leading indicator on trends - if for no other reason than the increased uptake and usage of digital services - then personal security and identity theft will be one the biggest issues with new and digital media in 2007 and through 2008. 6. National versus personal or individual online web security - with the increasing persistence of online personal data paths, records, traces or tracks (the persistent trace of your activities using credit and identity cards, the internet and web over time, and into the past) the need for governments to know about you to govern tax and national security issues is increasingly at odds with your rights to (and need of) personal privacy and freedom. See for example in 2006 how search engine companies were forced to turn over personal and private search information to the US government, the publishing online by AOL of a customer's private search patterns, and the sacking of nearly 20 staff from the Australian federal government department of Social Welfare for illegally accessing and also altering the private records of ex-lovers and spouses, and friends from their special access to personal files (see also Franz Kafka, The Trial). 7. Your family name is my name, AND my name.. - for those with common family and/or first names, it is likely that there are others out there (your doppelganger or double?) who ALSO have or use the same name. We need a mechanism to legitimate many identical or similar personal names. 8. Setting the online name record straight - should you also maintain some "independent" anchor, reference. mention, abstract, etc, site or listing referring to and "describing" you? - that puts forward your perspective - to lessen or balance other dissenting or divergent views on you and your identity or image - viewpoints at variance with the truth or your own view of your self. Think of other ways to protect the "real" or valid you. As an example of this, for my name, many other Jeffrey Cooks (or name "clones" or likenesses of your name and/or self) have already registered personal or family name domain names, for example, www.jeffcook.com, www.jeffeycook.com and www.jeffreycook.net. They are probably really nice people and I support their right to their valid name! If this is the same situation for your name, where does that leave our online self image and identity? 9. Your online rank, rating or "validity" - if an "important" someone (or entity such as family, [girl/boy] friends, recruitment agency, personnel or human resources department, etc) searches on your name can you afford to leave their first and very important impressions of your "character" or identity to chance? - or should you properly construct your identity - as best you can achieve a valid online reference - to reflect what you"actually or "really are" or perhaps better, "what you aspire to become"? 10. Unique personal names cut both ways - while we need a unique identity to protect our self image such an exact definition or who we are, this brings surveilling eyes closer to our private past, for example, the government could issue a Smart Identify Card linked to your unique identity/identifier and be able to track, record and finally bring together or aggregate your activities captured every time you use the card. Of course, it's "for your own good". 11. Identity theft and borrowing - could a prankster or malicious person clone or construct a false identity of your self through identity fraud - "stealing" or "taking over" your valid online identity as their own? to" pass off" as you, to falsely trade or act on the behalf of their own or another's advantage or interest? Will a "valid" reference site prevent identity fraud? With proper and appropriate legislation and mechanisms and procedures in place to protect your online identity national security would be improved (preventing others from masquerading as you to commit crimes against the state), as would the security of your name from identity theft and other forms of identity impersonation and crime. Proper legislation to protect our personal names is required now. Email your federal representative and remind them that even their family and personal names are unprotected! |
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The Future of Name Identity is Valid Connections |
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| An important part or component of our selves becomes our digital and/or web trace or record: our persistent digital connections and associations. How then to validate and manage our online identity? We need government regulatory intervention to legislatively and hence legally underpin our rights to our name and identity: online, offline and in perpetuity.
Should you register a family or personal name domain name, e.g. myfamilyname.com etc to "stake out a claim" on the limited and ever-diminishing resource of "unregistered" or "available" names and name space? (to use the current web domain name legal model with all its deficiencies) The internet powers-that-be dedicated the dot name suffix (www.yourname.name) as a way out - but this sucks as it is rarely used and so ranks poorly in the SERPs - and so a dot name address is largely useless. It also does not address the "many with one" name issue. How else then could you represent your self and identity on the web and internet today? How to juggle a finite amount of namespace between many persons with the same name? These are open questions! for you to answer in your own way. Whatever the solution it must recognise and respect each individual's right to a unique identity - a unique identifier - online. A suggestion is personal meta data: to use different forms of identifiers - using personal names but adding information rich attributes and metadata to each name. Surely laws must be enacted by government to establish, maintain and protect at least one "valid" reference or citation of you and your identity: your "value", your "worth", your context and position in the new digital ecology. jeffrey james cook, australia, 31 August 2006. |
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| Post Script - more on online personal names issues | ||||
Jeffrey James Cook Personal Name and Metadata | Australia | Online Identity Issues | 22 Sept 2006 |
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This is a brief survey and discussion of issues and policy related to the presentation and representation of your online self, in the form of your personal or family name on the web and internet. It is focussed on Australia, but the issues are global or universal. For example, my name, Jeffrey Cook, is poorly represented on the web. At the moment, "I" am not really "there" in online search results. "I" rank poorly *as myself* - whatever *that* means..