I occasionally listen to the podcast version of Tech Tuesdays on the Kojo Nmandi public radio show, and there was an interesting episode last month related to this topic. What is the future of our individual reputations in a world where almost every action is recorded and archived and searchable in an instant. What about our "good name" - especially when there could be a million people out there with the exact same name and it's easy to get confused. [Sidebar: is this why parents feel the need to get so creative with the spelling of their children's names?]
The call-in questions were not as interesting as the intro from the guest -- Daniel Solove, a law professor at George Washington University and author of a new book called The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor and Privacy on the Internet. One woman was afraid of her ex-husband posting naked photos of her on his website as revenge, another person wondering about the responsibility people have to report harmful websites, and of course there was the obligatory mention of concern job applicants should have about their social networking profiles.
Something highlighted on this show: the intrinsic value we, as a nation, have placed on privacy as show by the legal protection of MAIL. It's interesting ... diaries (and of course blogs) are considered quite public, as is any video or audio recording (Alec Baldwin voicemail, Paris Hilton sex tape) but no one would dare steal postal mail and publish it without permission. In fact, reading the collected letters of a historical figure still thrills ... right? I heard that Susan Sontag's son is publishing some of her papers and letters, and I realized I want to read her words more than look at Annie Leibovitz's photographs of her during her latest illness and death.
Anyway, something to think about - the value of privacy and the written word. I hope we don't all have to register with Reputation Defender (mentioned on the radio show) to stave off attacks.
