Cindyterry,
They're not in search engines. They're in documents and data files
posted on the Web. The search engines are just tools for finding
them, the Internet equivalent of a card catalogue. So you would have
get the documents removed or get your name taken off the documents.
I thoroughly sympathize with your wish for privacy. More than 25
years ago I was already worried about the kind of information that
gets stored in data banks (long before the public had Internet access)
and the kind that we give away about ourselves every time we fill out
a form, supply personal history, or answer a questionnaire. I've
tried hard to avoid getting on lists of all kinds, will not use any
rewards card or other data collection tie-in device (my privacy is
worth more to me than the discount--but look how rabidly data
gatherers of every kind try to seduce us into giving out information
and how much it must be worth to them, considering what they will pay
for it), and have encoded my name so I can track how magazine
subscriptions and catalog purchases spawn junk mail. But my
consistent efforts for more than a quarter of a century have resulted
in no more privacy for me than for people who truly don't care and
consider this concern sheer silly paranoia.
I think the reality is that keeping one's name and personal
information to oneself is pretty nearly impossible now, in the
Internet age, and, thanks to folly and madness at the national level,
it is going to get much worse. I also think that the youngsters who
scoff at the will to keep, own, and control one's own personal
information are going to get a shock one day when they find out what
it really means to have squandered this basic right.
Apteryx
(not a researcher) |
