Digital Tattoo – Online Identity

Digital Tattoo was an interesting website published by the University of British Columbia, and it made me a little more mindful of my own digital footprint. Most of us are mindful to a certain extent about what information we put on the internet. I am exceptionally careful. Facebook comes to mind most when I think of this subject as I have had many friends I know get fired for pictures or comments on Facebook. I do not have a Facebook and neither do I plan on having one. I noticed that my student site for this class did appear in all the searches I tried, but more interestingly stuff that I had paid to be removed from search engines is still showing up on a couple of them like public records about some of the corporations I have own/owned. The most common thing that came up in searches were obituaries for close family.  My digital footprint is small and intentionally so, but it’s also important to keep in mind that this is all I have found. There is no way to access all of the web in it’s entirety so it’s impossible to know just how much information on you is out there whether open to the public or being sold to third parties from services we have signed up for. It’s mind-boggling.