I google myself. That sounds kind of bizarre, but in setting up the new site and blog, I’m interested in where I appear out there. Part of the reason for this blog is to increase my web presence, so it would be appropriate to google myself. Vanity has its uses.

But one of the problems of having two given names (only two given names) is that I seem to be lost in amongst all the other Alison Ruth [LastName]’s out there. Admittedly, I’m first, or at least my official university profile is, followed closely by my uni blog (the (B)Lotus one, which I really dislike, but that’s fodder for another post). In amongst the pages and pages of hits for “alison ruth” are my publications, but they don’t appear together and there is no definitive list of them (until now).

But nonetheless, it’s interesting to see how often I do turn up, given that the combination ‘alison ruth’ is such a popular set of names. There are two alison ruth’s on livejournal (neither of which are me). Mostly you can find the things that are public by searching for ‘alison ruth’ or ‘alisonruth’. I tend to sign up to sites that I’m comfortable people knowing about as the latter. Sometimes, googling myself helps me remember what I have signed up for.

The process does make it very obvious how much information is out there about you (very much a vicarious conversation with yourself), but it also puts my mind at ease, as with all the stuff I have put out there, most of what comes up with my name is the kind of stuff that’s okay. Everything else is hidden behind a pseudonym. (And no, I’m not telling, it’s private.)

Privacy is a conversation between an individual and the social process with which they engage. Like most conversations, part of it can be taken out of context by others who have access to the information. I know there are lots of things out there about me, but generally, I’m okay with the things that are viewable. It brings up interesting issues about ownership and control of information. In some ways, I know that once something is out there, I no longer have control over it, yet do I still own it in the traditional sense. I think I have a sense of discomfort with the notion of intellectual property, about who owns what.

Take the music industry, sorry, the recording industry. There’s all sorts of mis-takes on what music is to people. For a song to be popular, the people who hear it, there must be some sense of ownership of the song for them to care about it, yet the recording industry maintains that we can never own it. There is a huge breakdown in the conversation between music listeners and music recorders. Who really owns the music?