What's in a name?

We would all like to think we are incredibly unique, and in a sense we are. Have you ever stopped to wonder how many other people share your name, and how accurate your information is out there on the web?

What the internet says about me.

I am rather fortunate that I have a common name. According to Google there are over 800 Jason Hill's in the United States, and 15 of us live in Illinois. We are a rather illustrious group. There is the Jason Hill that plays football for the San Francisco 49ers. There is the Jason Hill that teaches at DePaul University. There is the Jason Hill that has an IMDB profile and works as a film score composer. All of these accomplished Jason Hill's come up in a Google search. We sound like a rather interesting group, and I wouldn't mind having a drink with the Jason Hill's of the world. My own information is rather difficult to find, and I'm perfectly satisfied with that!

Image Source: Screenshot of the "Jason Hill" Google search.

There are a number of data mining companies that will scour the internet for publicly available information. 

I found several of the sites were not easy to use, or most of the information was hidden behind a paywall. I found this to be the case with Spokeo and SocialMention.

Some of the sites had information about me, but some of the information was inaccurate. For example, Radaris had my correct birth month and year, and listed my relatives. However, a deeper look at the information had my sister as the wrong age (they had her being older when in fact she is younger), and it had previous addresses that I have never lived at. PeekYou yielded 15 Jason Hill's in the state of Illinois, none of which turned out to be my profile. 

Image Source: PeekYou profile search results for "Jason Hill"

Two of the "best" data mining sites I discovered were ZabaSearch and Nuwber. ZabaSearch offered my full name, age, and my current address. One interesting option is this site offered a relative selector, but you had to provide a name and email in order to view the data. It did list the names of my mother and sister, and offered to provide me with a list of sex offenders that lived in my vicinity. I have a feeling this is a scare tactic to convince people to move beyond the paywall.

Nuwber provided interesting results when I completed my data mine. It asked for a name, city and state. It then provided results that included my current address, my age (wrong year), a list of relatives, links to social media accounts, and 4 "facts" about "Jason Hill" of which three of the facts were inaccurate. One interesting feature of Nuwber is that also gave an Opt Out option. I do not remember seeing this on any of the other data mining sites I visited. 

Image Source: Personal screenshot of Opt Out Nuwber option.

Reflection:

I am torn as to whether I want to take the time to correct the copious misinformation on data mining sites about me. On the one hand, I find the anonymity somewhat comforting, but I wonder if people might be looking up this misinformation and making judgements about me. As a public school teacher I do curate the information I provide on my social media pages. I try to keep embarrassing information and photos to a minimum. It just makes me wonder how much information out there on the internet is actually in our control?