Me on the Web = Me on Google?

Seems someone at Google read our recent post about controlling one’s online identity and reputation. Just last week, the search engine giant announced a new online application called Me on the Web designed to troll the web  to find a person’s name, contact info, or email address configured much  like a Google Alert. Open only to Google account holders, the  application lives on the user’s dashboard and once enabled can monitor  any and all configured alerts. Actually trying to controlling your results is where things get interesting. To start, Google offers four basic steps for managing your reputation. Three of the steps are fairly  self-explanatory: search for yourself, remove unwanted content, and  continue to monitor using alerts. However, step two tells you to create  Google profile to promote the information you wish to release. Is this  related to online reputation control? Sure. Could this be a tactic designed to expand Google’s social network? Certainly.

Google,  like many other online giants, has their own reputation when it comes  to harboring information. Why then would one want to simply maneuver  their online identity from one site to another? As DigitalTrends points out,  “One difference, however, is that Me on the Web—and Google’s  profiles—collect all that information in one place. The security- and  privacy-conscious usually go to efforts to make sure their ego-surfing  doesn’t trace back to any one point.”

When  it comes to your online identity, hold your personal information close,  avoid spreading yourself too wide across the Internet but stay away  from giving it up to just one site. In the unfortunate event your  reputation is compromised, keep tools like Me on the Web in mind but dig  a little deeper to uncover detailed ways to manage your online identity.