Tuesday, October 27, 2009

A Scary Search


The other day I received a disturbing email from Ron. He had Googled my real name, and one of the hits was something that he was sure I wouldn't want other people to find associated with me.

I've always been very careful to keep my spanking and blogging interests separate from my everyday vanilla life, so I had to see it for myself. I typed in my name and was amazed at the number of hits.

Most were reasonable, and referred to various organizations and activities I'm involved in. Some were from websites I manage and one was work-related. But a very unexpected hit was on a large online bookseller's site: it was my wish list. Unfortunately, the book at the top of the list was about spanking, and the title made that very clear. A person looking for me would not even have to click on the link to see what I liked to read; the information was all right there in the search results.

I quickly logged on and brought up my wish list. The book in question wasn't even on it. Nevertheless I deleted everything on the list, then repeated the search. The offending book still appeared in the search results. Even scarier was the fact that the date of wish list was over two years ago. I clicked on the link in the search and deleted the book. Phew!

I'm so grateful to Ron for finding this virtual finger, pointing to my kinky interests, and I thanked him cheerfully, although I did feel rather embarrassed. Still, I have to wonder. Why was he Googling me? I have no idea. What did he hope to find? Who knows. I hope he found what he was (or wasn't) looking for.

The moral of the story is, even when you think you're safe, you can never be sure. I would advise you all to try Googling your own names, and I hope you don't find something incriminating.



From Hermione's Heart

9 comments:

Rose said...

I occasionally google my husband's name and my own for this very reason. For him, he is a fairly well-known professional, and cannot have unsavory details popping up when someone searching his name. And for me, well, I just wouldn't want someone to come across this part of my life if they don't already know about it. I am fortunate to have a reasonably common name, so when I google myself, I get a bunch of hits about other people with the same name.

A.S.S. said...

Good tip. And always-ALWAYS use a 'scene' name and Email address when doing ~anything~ kink related (if being 'found out' could be an issue). You were lucky in that you could delete what was causing the Google hit. What we've seen happen though, a few times... is a someone will be online under their 'regular' name and they'll start doing something spanking related. They will then forget what name they're on and post / do something that they can't pull back. Chances are it will never be an issue if something like that happens, but who needs the stress?

:)
~Todd & Suzy

Anonymous said...

Whoa! Thanks for the heads up, Hermione.

Anonymous said...

I have to admit I check my name about once a month and have done so for the last six years or so. It is nothing to do with spanking- I just like to make sure there is nothing out there.

It is amazing what turns up. I think everyone should do it.

Anonymous said...

Interesting, and yes, scary! I have Googled my real name, and come up with all sorts of boring stuff from a million other people with my name. The only thing I've found that's actually me is my business profile from LinkedIn. Whew!! -- Erica

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the info! I'm going to go check out my name now!

ronnie said...

Hermone, I can image a pretty scary search.

Thanks for sharing this with us. I must admit I do check my name now and again since I started blogging.

Love.
Ronnie
xx

Measha said...

How scary! I check my name periodically just for fun. Luckily I have a somewhat common name so it hasn't been an issue so far.

Had a scare though recently when I noticed my pen name had been googled the same day my brother had been babysitting for us...after much searching TJ assured me it wasn't my computer that had done the search.

Cowgirl said...

Wow, that would freak me out if that happened. Luckily I already Google myself regularly, and I also have separate emails, scene name, etc. for spanking related stuff. I even Google my spanking blog related stuff. I'm pretty careful because I can't have these two worlds collide and have myself found out.