Iria

Geri Agalia doesn't appear to leave less of a data trail than most Americans. She has a phone in her name, a bank account, utility bills, a mortgage and a credit card. But the stay-at-home mom and part-time student is among a select and ever-shrinking group of the digitally privileged -- her name does not appear on Google.

"I just value my privacy," says Agalia, who lives in San Diego. "And I think that the government and corporations already know too much about people for the benefit of marketing."

As the internet makes greater inroads into everyday life, more people are finding they're leaving an accidental trail of digital bread crumbs on the web -- where Google's merciless crawlers vacuum them up and regurgitate them for anyone who cares to type in a name. Our growing Googleability has already changed the face of dating and hiring, and has become a real concern to spousal-abuse victims and others with life-and-death privacy needs.

Even those in the know can find their Google search results jarring: When, last July, a CNET News.com journalist reported information on Google CEO Eric Schmidt's personal and financial life gleaned from search results, Google issued a retaliatory ban on employees talking to the publication, which was only lifted last week.

But despite Google's inarguable power to dredge up information, some people have succeeded -- either by luck, conscious effort or both -- in avoiding the search engine's all-seeing eye.
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Read More / Source: Wired News

Zelig

My name returns a total of 2 hits in Google, in a forum thread identifying me therein... I don't really care either way though.

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pr0digal jenius

my name is all driver related

MitchRapp

my name shows up on a bunch of university websites (class sites where I HAVE to use my real name)

Dark Lord

175 things turn up when you search my name.

3 of wich are actually about me (2 covette related, 1 from a friend website)

the rest are pretty much all for my uncle, hes a doctor so he tends to show up all over the place.

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Son_of_Thunder

My name comes up with five pages of stuff, only two pages are related to me though. I guess there is an author that has a different first name, but my first name is his middle name, and we share a last name.

So, if my name was John Smith, his would be James John Smith.

Then there's a book character that shares my name as well.

The two that are related to me are from an old post on hardware analysis where I actually used my real name as my username, and another from an old HTTP course I had a few years ago.

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dj_stick

i get 180,000 hits - most of them nothing to do with me
but for my username here i get 8910 - all related

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Son_of_Thunder

Darn, now there's another Son_of_Thunder out there. He's a WoW player out of Russia.

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Dark Lord

theres also a Son_of_Thunder on the Fark forums. dont know if its you or not.

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niceguyrichy

damn, I get 3,830,000 hits for my name.

I'm common.

first few for my user are all from here though.

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Sandok

Bah you all know my name if you look up some of the reviews I've done so here... Nice eh?

Your search - "Arush Kochhar" - did not match any documents.

Suggestions:

- Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
- Try different keywords.
- Try more general keywords.

The_Neon_Cowboy

20,900,000 1st and last name
2,550,000 1st, middle last name

in quotes
2,900 1st and last name
0 results 1st, middle last name

no legit hitz

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Son_of_Thunder

With my full name I only got one hit, legit, that same page from college.

http://student.muskegon.cc.mi.us/~alke/

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