Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Suggests changing your name, I suggest google is out of touch with tech.

adamdomoney.posterous.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

1–10 of 20 posts

Re: Google Suggests changing your name, I suggest google is out of touch with tech.

#2

Post by losethos »

Is it just me or is it obvious a company might ask, "Why do you have no net presence before 2010? What's your real name?" Some site will probably publish public documents on name changes.

The Bible says a reputation is worth more than gold. I guess back then, communities were small and everybody knew your family from when you were a child.

Re: Google Suggests changing your name, I suggest google is out of touch with tech.

#4

Post by Cyndre »

JangoSteve wrote: post #3

Image search? You won't even need to go that far. Just put the person's current name into Google, and let it suggest, "Did you mean [previous name]?"

Should have thought of that one.

And in the future changing your name will result in a "Did you mean [previous name]?" link on google name search's.

Kudos to you

Re: Google Suggests changing your name, I suggest google is out of touch with tech.

#5

Post by randomwalker »

danah boyd has a great post on this: http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2010/08/16/name-ch...

Summary: "First, it completely contradicts historical legal trajectories where name changes have become increasingly more difficult. Second, it fails to account for the tensions between positive and negative reputation. Third, it would be so exceedingly ineffective as to be just outright absurd."

She provides strong evidence for all of these.

Re: Google Suggests changing your name, I suggest google is out of touch with tech.

#6

Post by will_critchlow »

It is pretty ridiculous in the form presented. It certainly doesn't scale. Having said that, there are sometimes sensible options around changing what most people search for.

Marriage is an obvious example. But even if you are just applying for a job, if you use a different version if your name, the search results can be very different. Compare the results for "will critchlow" and "william critchlow".

Re: Google Suggests changing your name, I suggest google is out of touch with tech.

#7

Post by Cyndre »

will_critchlow wrote: post #6

It is pretty ridiculous in the form presented. It certainly doesn't scale. Having said that, there are sometimes sensible options around changing what most people search for. Marriage is an obvious example. But even if you are just applying for a job, if you use a different version if your name, the search results can be very different. Compare the results for "will critchlow" and "william critchlow".

But now add in a few more pieces of information. Like the city, state, country. And the type of job they are applying for. Also roughly age, previous jobs, any information listed on their resume.

By itself I agree its meaningless, but when combined with the other pieces of information the potential employer has access to it is very revealing.

Re: Google Suggests changing your name, I suggest google is out of touch with tech.

#8

Post by will_critchlow »

Cyndre wrote: post #7
will_critchlow wrote: post #6

It is pretty ridiculous in the form presented. It certainly doesn't scale. Having said that, there are sometimes sensible options around changing what most people search for. Marriage is an obvious example. But even if you are just applying for a job, if you use a different version if your name, the search results can be very different. Compare the results for "will critchlow" and "william critchlow".

But now add in a few more pieces of information. Like the city, state, country. And the type of job they are applying for. Also roughly age, previous jobs, any information listed on their resume. By itself I agree its meaningless, but when combined with the other pieces of information the potential employer has access to it is very revealing.

Oh. Don't get me wrong, you can still dig in and find stuff, but as a simple separation of work and non-work (especially if some stuff about me did rank for both versions), it can be easier than other options.
Post reply on HN