Googling Yourself

In this Internet age, one of the most popular time wasters is searching for information about yourself on the WebGoogling yourself, in the common parlance. While this may seem to be a particularly useless and self-indulgent endeavor, there's more to it than meets the eye.

Yes, it's fun to enter your name into the Google search box and see what comes up. You never know who's saying what about you, especially if you have a little bit of a public presence.

The real value in self-Googling, however, comes when you discover how much of your personal information isor hopefully isn'tavailable for public viewing on the Web. Googling yourself is a great way to find out just how private or public your phone number, email address, and street address are; you can also find out if any of your credit card or Social Security numbers are floating around the Web. (If they are, it's a sure sign you've been a victim of identity theft.)

To do a full-bore personal security check on your personal information, enter the following items into the Google search box (one at a time, of course), and see what results come up:

• First and last name

• Street address

• Phone number

• Email address

• Social security number

• Credit card numbers

• Bank account numbers

The first item, of course, is relatively innocuous; if you've ever posted any comments on a web forum or blog, your name is probably going to be in Google's database. Even your street address and phone number aren't much to worry about, especially if the results come primarily from the Google PhoneBook. (This just means that your address and phone number are public information, as published in your local white pages telephone directory.)

Discovering that your email address is public knowledge, however, is a bit of a bigger deal. Again, Google is likely to know your email address if you've ever placed a forum or blog posting, or created a web page with a link to your email address. The problem with having an easily Googleable email address is that if you can Google it, so can email spammers. In fact, Googling for email addresses is one of the most common ways for spammers to get your email address. A spammer might search for all email addresses within a given domain; if your address appears in the results, you're added to the spammer's mailing list. Sorry.

The worst possible situation is if you Google your financial information and get a match. This means that someone, somewhere has stolen your personal info, and made it available on the Web for others to use. If you find credit card or bank account info on the Web, contact your credit card company or bank immediately to put a hold on your account and check for fraudulent use.

If it's your Social Security number that you find online, you should contact the Federal Trade Commission at www.consumer.gov/idtheft/ or 1-877-438-4338. If you think someone is using your Social Security number for work purposes (which would be apparent by examining the Social Security Statement the government sends you each year), contact the Social Security Administration at 1-800-772-1213.