New York - "Googling" has become the latest fashion for increasing numbers of information-hungry Americans using the Internet search engine Google to find out more about each other.
The majority of the 150 million questions to one of the most powerful search engines each day come from individuals trying to investigate other people.
"When I was looking for a flat-mate, I googled all those who said they were interested," said Isabelle, a young French journalist living in Manhattan, who asked that her last name not be used.
"Some guy tells you 'I work for this company', boom, you google them to see if it's true. You can see right away exactly what their position is, something that doesn't exactly please them."
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| 'The only people that would appear on Google were people who were famous' |
The Internet has penetrated all sectors of American society to the point that biography research, work, articles and even electronic messages that are otherwise hard to find are available with a quick click of the mouse.
"The person I finally chose, Ali, I googled him a lot: I found that he once had a speeding ticket in Connecticut," Isabelle smiled.
As more and more documents are placed online, by every sector of United States society, googling has become a powerful tool to obtain information about a person's life, career, preferences, hobbies and bad habits.
"In the early days, the only people that would appear on Google were people who were famous. You had to be a journalist, an executive, a researcher," said David Holtzman, chief editor of GlobalPOV, an Internet site dedicated to personal privacy issues.
"Now, so many people are interacting with the Internet that almost anyone that uses a computer sooner or later will show up in Google somewhere."
| 'I check everything out on Google' |
"The implications are huge: it will not go away. Even if the website goes down, Google always can find you. Anyone has to assume that once something is in a electronic form, it will probably be around forever. And the nature of the Internet makes that it can't be regulated."
The US media have been quick to figure out the power of googling, finding information on people in a matter of hours.
Others are now regretting past jokes: putting up compromising pictures for the amusement of a few friends; listing latest erotica or declaring themselves anarchists.
"People are given less flexibility to present themselves as they choose, because others can gather so much information thanks to this phenomenon of so much information migrating to the Internet and being searchable with Google," commented Jonathan Zittrain, co-director of the Centre for Internet and Society at Harvard.
Sophie, who also asked that her surname not be used, said she googles all potential lovers that she finds through Internet chat rooms before she will meet them.
"Everybody does it. The other day, at dinner, we were talking about how to meet nice guys and one friend said 'I check everything out on Google'. Everyone around the table said 'of course'."
"When, during dinner, a guy seems alright, rather than ask him a lot of questions, I just discreetly investigate him online. If he's a baseball fan or a Republican, I don't even continue." - Sapa-AFP
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