You can't hide from Google!
I notice quite a few people refrain from posting details about their job or employer in blogs (not such a bad idea: after all, there was that chick in France who got sacked for writing certain blog posts about work), but that got me thinking about whether this really keeps that information secret in the age of Google. So I did a test with someone by using their first name and the city in which she lives. The second hit was a work work web page with her bio on it. For me it's the same. Then I tried it with a friend of a friend's blog I started reading-A while ago, wondering if I had actually met this person previously, I googled about with info I could ascertain from her blog, along with a few educated guesses, and I'm pretty sure I found her bio on her institution's website.-Putting in her first name and the city in which she lives ... again, second hit in Google. Then I tried it with another work colleague. First hit. Not surprising, as she has a not-so-common name. But then I looked down the list, and found a blog entry from someone else, in which I am mentioned (another friend-of-a-friend situation: he comes a little down the lost on the Google test, but still on the first page). At this stage, the efficiency with which this was working was blowing my mind. Granted, I had a couple of mishits, but generally it worked well, especially for people living away from their homeland (and perhaps therefore having names that differ more from those of the locals). I decided to test it for a friend of mine who is coming to visit next week. Didn't work. Perhaps she hasn't been in her new city of residence long enough. So then I decided to try it on the friend of hers who is also coming to visit (again, a friend-of-a-friend situation). Knowing only his name and the city in which he is living, I think I have located him (with a photo). The info seems to match the few details my friend told me, so we'll see next week if Google got it right. Rather ironically, the info I found was at couchsurfing.com, and this guy will be "surfing my couch".