Google & Your Geocaching Nickname

[vagabond]

I went through 10 pages of google and found nothing on me, I went to zabasearch and found my wife and our kids and myself were listed as relatives

with my first name spelled incorrectly. Hey I'm not worried, I haven't done anything I shouldn't have

[+Sissy-n-CR]

Aw, maaaan! There are some things in life that we are really better off not knowing about. Or at least happier. I knew I shouldn't do it, but I did.

 

My Username when I'm not tied to CR is scsissy.

 

The first seven hits were for some chick (NOT ME!) who is into guys who wear diapers.

 

I think I have to go take a shower now.

[Neos2]

I already knew that my real name is plastered all over the net. When I teach my kids at school how to use search engine effectively, some wise child always uses my name in their favorite search engine.

 

They learn that:

my husband used to be in a hard core band and used to work in cold glass

his brother still is-and he is a hot glass artist

they both use bad words

they have reporter friends who write stories about how big and tough they were as teens

I like to work on my family history--a lot

I have certification in Biology, Earth & Space science, Physical science, General science

I had a temporary certification in Family and Consumer Science

I was the Art History student of the year for my graduating class

I think it's good to teach Evolution in school and my students like the way I do that

I took my own children on a "walk of the cross" that ended near the river

I am fond of old jewelry especially watermelon glass stuff from the forties

 

I try to watch what I say in the forums because my classes have a couple of TBs that we track, so I knew the kids know my user name here and could see my forums posts also. I'm no goodie-two-shoes, but I do like to set a good example for my students--so I try to be reasonable even when I am upset about something.

 

When you think about it, it's really no different than in the old days, when everyone in town got mentioned in the local newspaper.

Had a fight with your wife? In the paper!

Helped build the local church? Front page!

Hit your wife? On the front page and in the editorial section!

The only difference is that our "local area" is now global.

Edited October 21, 2006 by Neos2

[Luckless]

I always thought that websites that you had to log into were proteceted from those nasty information gathering web crawlers.

[+Kealia]

I always thought that websites that you had to log into were proteceted from those nasty information gathering web crawlers.

 

Without them, how would you expect to find anything online??

[+Glenn]

I've always enjoyed plugging in names at Googlism.com.

[+ADKcachers]

Seems fitting doesn't it? Now we can look at Google's cached pages.

[CemeteryMan]

Have you bought groceries, or gas, or anything else for that matter, using a debit or credit card?

If the answer is 'yes' then you have revealed demographic information about you that WILL be used by any marketing firm or politician who is willing to pay the price for "THE LIST".

 

If are unaware that this has been going on for decades, then you may need to start paying attention to the world around you.

 

--CemeteryMan

[+CraigInCT]

Have you bought groceries, or gas, or anything else for that matter, using a debit or credit card?

If the answer is 'yes' then you have revealed demographic information about you that WILL be used by any marketing firm or politician who is willing to pay the price for "THE LIST".

 

If are unaware that this has been going on for decades, then you may need to start paying attention to the world around you.

 

I am thankful for this - without it, I'd have to drive from store to store to find that flavor of ice cream I like.

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

Anyone else's opinion?

 

You posted it to the Internet. What did you expect?

That reasoning is not really accurate or realistic. The reality is that many forums, including most regional forums owned by regional geocaching organizations, and many forums devoted to other outdoor sports, use simple robot.txt file entries or other simple server-side methods to ask search engines not to search/catalogue forum posts. For some odd reason, geocaching.com is, in my experience, among the minority of forums devoted to specialized outdoor sports that allows search engines such as Google to search, catalogue, index and list posts from its forums. I am not sure it if that is due to an accidental oversight or to an intentional choice on the part of geocaching.com. For some reason, geocaching.com also allows its cache listing pages -- including log entries -- to be catalougued and listed by search engines, and again, I find this somewhat atypical compared with sites for other outdoor sports.

Edited October 21, 2006 by Vinny & Sue Team

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

I always thought that websites that you had to log into were proteceted from those nasty information gathering web crawlers.

Yes, in my experience, this is largely true for such member-only websites devoted to many hobbies, outdoor sports and for some specialized activities; the majority do not allow search engines to catalogue most of their pages. However, Geocaching.com seems to have decided to open the doors to search engines. BTW, I do not agree with you that the spiders or robot search tools used by search engines such as Google, Yahoo or MSN are "nasty". Rather, they are just doing a job, and without them, we would not enjoy the benefits of search engines such as Google.

[+Bad_CRC]

no geocaching stuff for me.

 

just a bunch of junk about that flash thing I did, a few other sites I'm on, and a few people who have stolen my nickname since then. not a single thing about geocaching... yet.

[+mb3]

I found a bunch of mb3 stuff but it wasn't me.

[+alexrudd]

Anyone else's opinion?

 

You posted it to the Internet. What did you expect?

I agree completely. Even if there were no Google, there is 99.9% certainty that anything you post to the Internet can be found.

[Neos2]

For some reason, geocaching.com also allows its cache listing pages -- including log entries -- to be catalougued and listed by search engines, and again, I find this somewhat atypical compared with sites for other outdoor sports.

And for that, I am very very grateful. I found out about geocaching only because I stumbled across the forums while researching which GPS to buy for my husband for a birthday gift. He's a gadget-oriented kind of guy, and like maps. I thought a GPS would be handy for his work. He's a truck driver and sometimes has to re-route himself around major accidents or figure out how to get somewhere in spite of having poor directions.

 

Little did I know I was getting us involved in a new hobby when I told him I had found this interesting website....

[nonaeroterraqueous]

 

As someone else pointed out, before anyone googled your nick, they would have had to have seen you on this site anyway. And I would be more careful about that.

...or if a muggle got a hold of a cache (hopefully one that he wasn't really ticked-off about) and read the logs. Now that I think of it, I'm sure it must have happened lots of times by now. I can see why a muggle would google the list of names found in a cache.

 

On another note: realistically, I don't see why geocachers are necessarily a safer lot than the general public. Correct me if I'm wrong, because I really want to be.

[+DavidMac]

Interesting. I thought my name would have been a little more used by others, but my geocaching profile is #3 and #4. The other two most prominent DavidMac's are somebody looking for a "soulmate" of the same orientation, and a very vocal poster on political forums (based on the political DavidMac's comments, I'd bet they're not the same person...). I even found a spammy fake "search engine" site that copied text out of one of my cache listings and used it along with excerpts from dozens of other seemingly random websites as filler material. I don't know whether I should be annoyed or flattered...

 

If you want to be more specific, search for "geocaching your user name". That brings up a lot of interesting stuff across dozens of websites, including local geocaching forums in which my name has been mentioned. Great way to find out exactly what people are saying about you behind your back .

Edited October 22, 2006 by DavidMac

[+Cornerstone4]

 

As someone else pointed out, before anyone googled your nick, they would have had to have seen you on this site anyway. And I would be more careful about that.

...or if a muggle got a hold of a cache (hopefully one that he wasn't really ticked-off about) and read the logs. Now that I think of it, I'm sure it must have happened lots of times by now. I can see why a muggle would google the list of names found in a cache.

 

On another note: realistically, I don't see why geocachers are necessarily a safer lot than the general public. Correct me if I'm wrong, because I really want to be.

 

Although there are a lot of us that can be sort of "odd" , I do think the overwhelming majority of active cachers are decent people.

 

However, that doesn't mean there aren't less savory types watching our goings on, yet not actively caching.

As a quick example, there has been a coin/Jeep TB theif in our area. I tend to think it is someone that may not even actively log accounts. It could be someone just trying to grab things the rest of us are looking for, and sitting back and laughing.

[+Renegade Knight]

... I don't like the idea that ANYONE in the WORLD can pull up my information and a picture of me, and from my logs, possibly be able to figure out the area in which I live....

 

Use a fake internet name, post and log accordingly.

Edited October 22, 2006 by Renegade Knight

[+shayse]

all I got with my username was a bunch of adult sites......I feel special