Commonality = anonymity + security

I’m currently in the process of making a 1:1 trade with a person on the other side of the country.  We connected for our trade via craigslist and therefore have no idea who the other person truly is other than the email they use.  Like nearly all trades I do on craigslist I google searched the name of the guy who responded.  Since his name was a very uncommon one, I was instantly provided with his public facebook page, his Bebo profile and some high school information.  I was able to see his music and movie preferences, what he looked like, who he was dating, when and where he went to High School, how he conversed with his friends and even some information about a relative possibly his older brother.

This got me thinking about how having a common name, actually provides some amount of anonymity and with that a little bit of added security.  If someone google searches for my name, there are 100s of Tim Andersons out there on the internets.  Now granted, my presence on social sites probably makes me pop up a little more often, and if you search out the name I use as this website’s domain and on other sites you are provided instantly with a lot of information about me.  But in general, if you have a more common name, it is less likely that someone can simpley google just your name and find out information about you.  Alternatively, if you have a very uncommon name, you are probably easily searchable.  Either way, it was an interesting reminder that you should be sure to protect your public identity on the internet.