Change Your Name To Escape Your Online Past?

August 19th, 2010

Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently spoke with the Wall Street Journal, and is making some headlines (like this article in the Telegraph) for his prediction, “apparently seriously, that every young person one day will be entitled automatically to change his or her name on reaching adulthood in order to disown youthful hijinks stored on their friends’ social media sites.”

That may be a little over the top (one link from the old name to the new name, and the whole cover is blown!), but I think he absolutely nails it when he says: “I don’t believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time.”

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: If you don’t want your mom to see it, if you don’t want it on a billboard in Times Square, don’t post it online.

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