| Safe dating in the internet age
Posted: 11/3/2009 6:23:04 PM | | Demon, I agree with you a bit in that it certainly doesn't tell you everything... especially if nothing comes up. But I disagree that you can't trust the information. You can certainly trust criminal records/felonies and such. That stuff won't come up unless it's true-- it's documented court records. If nothing comes up, it certainly doesn't mean you are safe by any means. Instinct and those good ole "red flags" will then need to be followed. | |
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| Safe dating in the internet age
Posted: 11/3/2009 6:36:28 PM | Unwarranted background checks, in my opinion, are an invasion of privacy pure and simple, and if I found out someone I was dating ran one on me we'd be done (I don't get involved with needlessly suspicious people). I have nothing to hide about myself and will gladly answer any questions she might have. Googling someone and getting publicly available information about them isn't quite the same thing, but it becomes a slippery slope. How much is too much? What if they have a rather common name and information comes back about someone else with the same name? That information can be easily misunderstood or misconstrued, and suddenly you're guilty until proven innocent. I've done a google on myself and had some interesting stuff, both good and bad, come back about people that aren't me, including my father, who has the same name and isn't the nicest person in the world.
I'm all for being safe, but when you get down to it, if your paranoia is so overwhelming that you feel the need to preemptively suspect someone, maybe you shouldn't be dating at all. Of course you shouldn't be naive, but trust is an all or nothing proposition and a necessary element to any successful relationship. | |
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| Safe dating in the internet age
Posted: 11/4/2009 1:14:14 AM |
Unwarranted background checks, in my opinion, are an invasion of privacy pure and simple, and if I found out someone I was dating ran one on me we'd be done (I don't get involved with needlessly suspicious people). I have nothing to hide about myself and will gladly answer any questions she might have. Googling someone and getting publicly available information about them isn't quite the same thing, but it becomes a slippery slope. How much is too much? What if they have a rather common name and information comes back about someone else with the same name? That information can be easily misunderstood or misconstrued, and suddenly you're guilty until proven innocent. I've done a google on myself and had some interesting stuff, both good and bad, come back about people that aren't me, including my father, who has the same name and isn't the nicest person in the world.
I'm all for being safe, but when you get down to it, if your paranoia is so overwhelming that you feel the need to preemptively suspect someone, maybe you shouldn't be dating at all. Of course you shouldn't be naive, but trust is an all or nothing proposition and a necessary element to any successful relationship.
Thank you, this is pretty much all I wanted to say, but couldn't be buggered to take the time to spell out. | |
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| Safe dating in the internet age
Posted: 11/4/2009 2:46:29 AM | | Don't blame you for looking into someone as it is harder for most women to stop a attacker than it is for a man. I can prove before I ever meet a woman that I have no criminal convictions and really don't mind doing it, I just photograph my drivers license and my weapons permit as you don't get a permit if you have been convicted of anything. | |
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| Safe dating in the internet age
Posted: 11/4/2009 6:43:16 AM | I did a google search on my name. Not that many results, as my last name isn't common at all. Found my website, and stuff about my eBay presence, as well as some computer game maps and scenarios I made some years ago.
But found there is some guy out in Nebraska with the same name as me. He appears to be a church pastor and active in foot races.
Actually surprised I didn't find any results from the police, as I used to be their IT support before I got tired of city politics.
Do I mind if someone googles my name? No. Do I mind if someone gets a background check? No, but then, I do find it kind of creepy, especially if only after one date.
I look at it like this: Google has only been around for 15 years or so. What did people do before then? Besides, Google doesn't help differentiate people with the same names. Pity anyone with a common name, like John Smith. I just googled that name, in quotes, and it returned almost six million results. | |
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| Safe dating in the internet age
Posted: 11/4/2009 7:23:43 AM | I googled my own name...
Got hundreds of hits.
Doctors, Environmentalists, Teachers, etc
Found links to high schools all over the country.
Found links to city records all over the country.
Somewhere on page 40 there was one mention of me. Just a little document about a purchase I made 7 years ago.
How much value can a web site offer if nothing you find can be counted on to be anything about the actual person in front of you?
Tell me... how can you rely on this source? | |
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| Safe dating in the internet age
Posted: 11/4/2009 7:30:03 AM | For those who don’t know how to “google”, for me it’s a blanket term to do searching. It takes a bit of work some times.
You can also look up cell numbers, it’s how I found the mystery women who kept making fake profiles and contacting me, (she had more than one).
I don’t do searches very often, only when things don’t add up, I like a little validation seeing as I can’t ask her friend. I haven’t done a check on the last few I have chatted with because they gave me all of the info and where to find it right off the bat! I loved that! It showed confidence in their decision! | |
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| Safe dating in the internet age
Posted: 11/4/2009 7:37:13 AM | How much value can a web site offer if nothing you find can be counted on to be anything about the actual person in front of you?
Well, for people like you, clearly it's not a worthwhile endeavor. However, there are people in the world who realize that it's possible to eliminate the irrelevant results.
Christ. I'm curious - What do you do if someone gives you an address and it's on "main" street? Do you throw up your arms and complain about how worthless this is because there are thousands of "main" streets in the country? Do you flip a coin and hope you end up at the right one?
Tell me... how can you rely on this source?
This crazy thing called "critical thinking". | |
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| Safe dating in the internet age
Posted: 11/4/2009 9:33:54 AM | Well...
applying that "critical thinking" to myself and the hits I got when I googled myself....
Even knowing the city and state didn't bring anything correct up. Looks like I am involved in land disputes and law suits all over New York!! (needless to say...I am not).
Since the ONLY document out there that actually has anything to do with me is only one line in a HUGE document about sales receipts...
Do I conclude I used a false name? Do I conclude that I have had many many professions all over the country?
What exactly does critical thinking do for me when the hundreds of documents have nothing to do with me?
Again... If I cannot even find myself in all those documents (one little line in an old receipt)... how can I rely on this for anyone? I do not have a deadly common name, btw. | |
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| Safe dating in the internet age
Posted: 11/4/2009 9:40:37 AM | The trouble, now, is that we're going to end up in a bit of a circular argument. See, you're implying that you have critical thinking skills while, from where I'm sitting, you're simultaneously demonstrating that you don't. I could try to explain it to you, but I don't especially like the smell of crayons, and even if I went to such efforts you would almost certainly return and continue to not understand.
Since it's not like I have any particular stake in whether or not you ever figure it out, let's save everyone a whole lot of time, and I'll just let you go on believing that your anecdotal test where n=1 is somehow demonstrative of anything other than your own inability, okay? | |
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| Safe dating in the internet age
Posted: 11/4/2009 9:50:40 AM | Name calling is the argument of a person who has nothing concrete to offer.
Your argument reduces to, "I googled myself and couldn't find anything! Clearly, this is not a worthwhile endeavor and there is nothing to be gained because I, personally, failed to find anything!" Do not delude yourself into thinking you have offered something worth arguing against. Some statements are too far off base and demonstrate too little basic, foundational understanding to bother trying to illustrate why you're wrong in excruciating detail. If you posted a fallacious mathematical proof, and at some point you indicated that you believe that 2+2 = 7, I probably wouldn't bother trying to explain why your proof is broken because you clearly lack the background to grasp it anyway.
You think poorly. Here's an entire Wikipedia article explaining only one of the many ways in which you have demonstrated that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statistical_significance | |
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| Safe dating in the internet age
Posted: 11/4/2009 12:11:21 PM | online searches aren't the be-all end-all of discerning character. just one imperfect tool of many.
and no, it's not unethical to search public records. now, some of the things you do with that info might be. like if someone streaked in the 70s as a teenager and got cited for indecent exposure, which can be classified a sex crime, and you broadcast to the internet that they were a sex offender.
i googled a gal once whom i had been in contact with for a week. i knew her full name because it was on her outgoing vmail message. i easily found out where she worked. so i told her she was taking a big discretion risk because a stalker could show up at her work and jeopardize her job. was googling her wrong? i think not. | |
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