Is your online identity really you?

Have you checked out where you (or your name) pop up on Google lately? You should. You might be surprised at what comes up.

School and college students putting fake profiles of teachers on websites such as Bebo and Facebook is probably the tip of what’s likely to become an iceberg. Irritate or upset someone in our digital world and you might find yourself being reviled and fraudulently represented in the virtual world.

Think it couldn’t happen to you? Think again. All Black Richie McCaw’s image has apparently been used by a Las Vegas casino worker looking for love on a dating website and Palmerston North woman, Maree Briggs, discovered a photo of her was being used by a US company to promote diet pills she’s never used or even heard of.

Online information about you – or someone with the same name as you – can open doors or slam them shut, as New Zealander Bevin Skelton found out. Finding it hard to secure a teaching job in China, he did a Google search for his name and discovered comments about a woman with the same name and associates of hers, who were described as anti-Asian racists, came up at the top search outcomes.

Although more than a decade old, the piece did nothing to help his job-hunting prospects. Although Mr Skelton asked for the comments to be removed, the website owner chose not to remove them. They did, however, add additional text to the post to make it clear the comments referred to a woman and not Mr Bevin Skelton, the teacher.

It’s not vain or egotistical to search for your name or references to yourself on the internet, it’s essential. You can’t hope to gain corrections and clarifications if needed if you don’t know what’s out there, whether it’s true or not, and even if it refers to you.

Creating and maintaining a positive online presence on websites such as TRUSTcite, LinkedIn and Ecademy, will go some way towards offsetting any adverse comments and should be nurtured. Creating a positive online presence to counter any adverse comments is an investment worth making.