ask.slashdot.org/story/09/12/10/2115238/Best-Way-To-Clear-Your-Name-Online
privacy An anonymous reader writes "About fifteen years ago, I did something that I've come to regret on a university computer system. I was subsequently interviewed by a Federal law enforcement agency, although no charges were pressed and I have no criminal record as a result of my actions. At the time, I discussed the matter with a friend of mine who went on to mention it briefly in a text file zine with a small distribution list. I've generally tried to keep a low profile online and until recently there's been very little information about me available from the major search engines. I've tried to address this with the owner of the site, but couldn't get anywhere. Even if my name in the source file is altered, cached copies will continue to link me with my youthful mistake. Have any other Slashdot readers had a similar experience? What practical steps would your readers recommend to prevent this information from hurting me? I am concerned that future employers may hold my past actions against me should they look for me online as part of their screening process."
It's like what Harlan Ellison said on Sci-Fi Channel: "People accuse me of contradicting myself because 30 years ago I said this or that. That's because 30 years ago I was young and stupid, and now I'm older and wiser and changed my mind. judge me on who I am today, now when I was some young brat." IMHO just as thre's a 7-year stature of limitations on law, so too should employers have a limitation on how far back they can dig. Anything that predates this decade should be irrelevant.
Journal Any employer that chooses to judge an employee by good or bad stuff they did 10 years ago, is stark raving insane. That kind of change in life status changes people's priorities.
That makes it harder to encounter the negative stuff casually. It also changes the balance in the perception of the individual concerned if the negative stuff does also come to light.
Most people are generally at the age of adulthood since then. While I agree, anyone who will hold that one and only thing against you would be a jerk, that doesn't mean it won't happen. But it will usually mean you wouldn't want to work with that person anyways. And if it's the ONLY thing available on him, it depends on what personally identifiable information is there. I can think of a handful of circumstances where he could simply say "No, that's not me" if the information isn't solid. As a Pro Tip: Make a Facebook Account, spend 1 weekend on it putting a few non-embarassing pictures, Change your status to something positive, and never touch it again. It'll get picked up on Google and the images you're tagged in - blamo, that small thing is going to the bottom of the list.
"Please cease and desist publishing this information about me that is true and was once published in a magazine." I think you mean 'ask politely', because I highly doubt a cease and desist would do much here beyond get you laughed at and provoke a lawyer to write a nice letter explaining the concept of the First Amendment to you.
Journal If you're "John Smith", I think it will be pretty easy to disclaim being the SAME John Smith unless there are a lot of other matching details. On the other hand, if your last name is "Szczerbiak", maybe you can make a case for wanting to simplify the spelling and change it. Basically those are the first two options I can think of -- dodge, and go stand somewhere else.
He could plaster his name across so many sites that he seems like a good upstanding citizen (and search engine spammer). Build up identities with the same name but obviously different information. We'll assume his name is so unique there's only him to find. Now, with 100 profiles on sites and message boards with different ages, locations, and experiences (although all bogus) they'd have to wade through the crap to identify him.
If a kid did half the shit we did, or lied about doing, they would be carted off to gitmo never to be seen again. hell, they want to charge you with a crime for just having 'anarchy' files today.
posting the fact to a site where a good deal of the readership's instinctive reaction to the posting of sensitive information on the Internet is to find and mirror it in as many locations as possible is probably not the best first step.
if it's result number 999 on google, i doubt your average employer will read that far into it, and if they do, the amount of positive things that have been said about you will probably outweigh the one negative result and i'm not sure of US law in this manner, but is it legal to deny someone a job opportunity based on an alleged crime for which they were completely pardoned?
You can be denied for ANY reason except race, religon, or sexual orientation and those are hard to prove. Why in the world would you think any employer "must" hire someone? The USA is a hire and fire at-will country and always has been. It doesn't even make sense to consider whether an employer "must" hire someone they don't want to hire because any employer in their right mind would simply eliminate the position before they would hire someone who is forced upon them. I kinda-sorta give you a pass because it appears you are Non-US. I'd only point out that this distinction is one major difference between the USA and the rest of the world.
As we speak thousands of once idle keyboards are feverishly trying away to unravel the mystery of just who you are and what you did - you even told them where to look.
Cast members are frequently very interested to see photographs of themselves performing in the show. And since it's Rocky Horror, they're usually wearing lingerie of some sort. At the time the photos are posted, they're invariably very excited about this. Especially because I take pride in my photography, and most people haven't seen photos of themselves prior to this that someone had actually put significant work into. A few years later though, these same people have frequently quit the cast, possibly graduated from college, and moved on to other activities. They may decide they want to apply for jobs in education, as music minister of a church, etc. They do some vanity searching on Google and are shocked... that the Rocky Horror cast web site is still online and kicking with what had been posted some years previously. Now keep in mind this is a hobby web site that I do purely for the enjoyment of myself and other cast members. It's done in my spare time, and I've always paid for it out of pocket. I'm sure I could honor requests to remove all of these photos, but I simply don't want to. It involves a lot of time and effort on my end, to accomplish something that's actively taking away from things I take pride in myself. I get probably a half dozen requests per year on average at this point all basically saying the same thing: "Take down my photos now! At some point I just had to say to hell with them all and whip up a form letter response saying "Sorry, but I'm just not going to do anything about it".
Journal do you tell people before you put the pictures up that you can't be bothered to tweak a few pages every 2 months when it becomes desirable for the pictures to come down again? Or set the site up so that none of the pictures stay up for more than 12 months? If you put potentially damaging pictures of people up on your website, you need to be responsible enough beforehand to recognise that you will need to 'budget' more time later to take them down again.
Unfortunately, I apparently left my browser with the cookie or whatever that automatically logged me into gmail account. So, some asshole came along after I left and used the opportunity to use my email account to register for some forum that discusses getting Viagra in all kinds of illegal ways. So every time I apply for a job, every time I apply for an apartment or whatever, when I meet a girl etc, I feel like someone's going to Google me and nearly the first result that pops up is all this crap about all kinds of illegal ways of getting Viagra for recreation use etc. I've done everything I can to email administrators of the forum (which has now seemed to be swallowed up into other forums ...
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