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Is it creepy to Google people? [non-dating-filter]

  • Do you think it's creepy when you find out someone has Googled you? Semi-related to previous questions about Googling dates, but my date isn't the Googler. I'm not naive; I know people Google their dates, acquaintences, friends, and etc. My new boyfriend told me last night that his uncle (who is like a father to him) Googled me. He then asked my boyfriend to ask me a question based on something he found (about my undergrad college). I didn't know the answer, but my discomfort level was raised. After a few moments of thought, I told my boyfriend I found it a little creepy that his uncle, who has not met me, does not know my last name, and (from various accounts) is a kind of... bombastic but interesting character, was searching me out on the internets. My boyfriend's response is that he has talked about me to his uncle, but not in super-detail, and that his uncle was mostly just a combination of nosiness and protectiveness - he wasn't really looking for dirt, just intel - and that while he understood and didn't want to minimise my discomfort, he wanted me to understand that his uncle is harmless and didn't have mean intentions. My boyfriend also said that his uncle liked what he found, which made my boyfriend feel good about our relationship. There isn't much about me on the internet. I don't use social networks, although I do have a LinkedIn, but there's certainly nothing I'm worried about anyone knowing. I guess that even though I know people do this, knowing about it made me feel somehow uncomfortable - in part because I'm a very private person, in part because I don't know this person and was unsure of their motives, in part because normally I probably wouldn't know about it. (It's also possible that because the way my boyfriend initially phrased it was more "digging into your background on the interwebz" than "conclusion: we like her!" and that caused the Googling to ping with me more than it might have.) But... is my discomfort a weird reaction to have in an age where people are constantly seeking out information about each other and I have my information out in the public arena?

  • Answer:

    It's the modern panopticon. It's not "weird" to want to be the mediator of what information is shared; that's what we're all used to from the pre-Google days. But the genie is out of the bottle. Unless you want your "hobby" to be removing personal information from the internet, it's a bit of a lost cause (unless you have a common name!).

anonymous at Ask.Metafilter.Com Visit the source

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Even if you wear your name on your sweater, that does not mean that you have given strangers the permission to stalk you. Googling ≠ stalking! Can we all just agree on that? The trivialization of the word stalking does a real disservice to true victims of a horrible, terrifying, violent crime.

headnsouth

It isn't remotely weird to do. Every single guy my friend dates, I throw into Google as soon as she knows both his first and last name. And that is not out of concern for her safety; it's out of nosiness.

DarlingBri

It's standard procedure. I'm actually more suspicious of people that don't have paper trails on Google these days.

Hollywood Upstairs Medical College

Prospective boyfriend googling you = normal in this day and age Prospective boyfriend's uncle googling you and ensuring that prospective boyfriend asks you a question about your schooling =/= normal in this day and age

kuanes

I googled my husband 12 (!) years ago before our first date. Reader, he married me anyway.

Eyebrows McGee

You've asked two questions: Is it creepy to Google people? No. It's more akin to the old-school "asking around" about someone, and not at all equivalent to stalking or private investigations or anything invasive. Do you think it's creepy when you find out someone has Googled you? Yes, because like you I feel like I am a private person. But like you I also have information out there about me, so it is what it is. If your information is available via a lazy google search and that's as far as the inquiry goes, then it's not creepy. So for example if a google search says where you live, the uncle might say to your bf "hey, I see she lives in Xtown, ask her if she's been to that new dog park." Not creepy. But if the uncle says "hey, I see she lives in Xtown, you know, her yard is kind of a mess and she needs to replace those gutters, are you sure you want to date her?" That's creepy. The fact is that everyone does it. You've been googled a lot more often than you know, by people you'd never imagine had any interest in you. And they really don't, for the most part. It's an easy, idle thing to do. People talking about what they find is still socially unacceptable, and that may be what's set off your creep-radar, but that's changing too.

headnsouth

I think it's normal to google new acquaintances, and even new acquaintances of loved ones. I think it's very weird that your new date mentioned that his uncle googled you, just like I think it's slightly weird to bring up that you google people you meet. I am not sure why I think it's weird to mention it and not weird to do it, but I do.

jeather

It's *so* pervasive in my personal and professional life that I now have a "Google keywords" section on my CV. I don't think it's a weird reaction, I think it's a case of accepting that people *will* do it.

gadha

I don't think there's anything remotely creepy about your boyfriend's uncle. He loves his nephew, he's naturally curious about the person his nephew dates, and google is a handy, common, and socially acceptable tool to use to find information. Even information about people. I might be an outlier, but I don't think it's creepy that he then took what he learned on google and turned it into a question for his nephew to ask you. That's yet another thing we do when we learn something that interests us--we ask more. It seems odd to me on one hand that it's not creepy to google someone, but then we cross some kind of boundary by asking a follow up question based on the information that we non-creepily obtain. Like anything, taken to extremes, this could be quite creepy. I suppose I am in the minority feeling like "Google search + innocuous follow up question" is not approaching an extreme. On the other hand, yes, I totally get that "I'm being watched" feeling that you get when you learn you've been googled. Although I get a very similar feeling when I hear someone tell me, "Oh, so-and-so was talking/asking about you last night." Finally, I think you could consider perhaps viewing this in the kindest possible light to boyfriend's uncle (actions motivated by curiosity and sincere interest on his part) and resist all temptations to put him in the Creepy Box unless new evidence compels you to.

MoonOrb

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