-by Tom Barten

Today my girlfriend and I are official citizens of Apeldoorn. And finally, we can have pets! Because we are both quite often outdoors, we decided to have 2 kittens. Why 2? So they can entertain each other, explore the apartment together and drain their energy together. We already had 1 name for a kitten: Boo, named after that awesomely cute girl from Disney’s Monsters Inc. But for the other one we had to come up with an other awesome name. We decided to call the other kitten Binkie, because the kitten we picked looked really like a stud. So here they are, Binkie and Boo! Welcome to our lives!

This is Binkie

And this is Boo

Today I had to decide: what name will I give to my project.

I had some cool ideas, but as usual, all those names were already taken (I guess by URL hunters). I was thinking about:

• Delete me (URL was taken)
• Verwijder me (translation in Dutch for the 1st option, URL was also taken)
• Delete my name
• How to Delete my name
• Guide to Delete me
• How to delete me

I think the last one will cover the most part of the intentions of my project goals. The “me” is not covering the “myself” part (that would be too personal), but the digital me.

So since this day, my projects name is How to delete me, with the awesome URL howtodelete.me.
If you want to know more about this project, visit the website somewhere in the middle of June and you’ll see what I’ve been up to the last few months!

So hope to see you there! Of course I’ll keep this blog because it’s somewhat a part of me and my digital identity!

Since I don’t want to mix up the definition of Account and Profile with each other, I searched for definitions of both of them (type in Google define:account, or define:profile). But I couldn’t get a real useful answer. I searched with “what is the difference between account and profile” (but in Dutch). Still I couldn’t get a real useful answer. Then I thought, maybe Tweeps will know this, so I tweeted my question. I had some really useful tips and suggestions from @mvbokhoven and @bosje.

I came up with this definition:

• Account is a key which grants you access to something on the web.
• Profile is a portrait of yourself which you want to carry out.

Then I thought, what the heck, I’ll search in English. Since there is more English content than Dutch content on the Web. And I found this:

“Your Account holds the basic information you needed to register on Rockclimbing.com. Your Profile holds more detailed information about you, for example your climbing experience. To enhance your experience on Rockclimbing.com it’s important you keep both your account and profile information up to date. Your account information will NEVER be shared with third parties while your Profile information is what others will see when they click on your username anywhere on the site.”

source: rockclimbing.com

So I think I can refine my definition a bit:

You need an account to make a profile, so your account contains personal info, like username and password. The profile is like your business card, which contains the personal information you want to share.

A few days ago I wrote an article about personal ads. I was rambling about my experience on personal ads. When I was doing some research and made my own questionnaire, I asked the people: “what do you think of this mothod?” You wouldn’t think, but most of the answers I got was “irritating”, “unpleasant”, “harder to ignore” and “shocking”.

The “harder to ignore”, I can get. It is much more effective when you see your own name somewhere. You think “hey, that’s me!”. But the last one I can get too. Sometimes I am shocked on what companies knows about me (what I bought, what my last search was on Google etc.) and how they use it in ads. You think your info stays where you put it, but, also when you blocked the information for outsiders, it isn’t. Or am I so totally wrong? Does companies inside the European Union transfer the information to a subsidiary in a country in e.g. Africa, where are no, or not that strict policies on privacy. That is what I think. I am not sure if it is legal or not, but I can imagine this happens right now. What do you think? Am I totally wrong? Am I a Dystopian?

So, here is a thought:

What will YOU do when your search engine keywords are on the street?

I bet you’ll go frenzy. Berserk. Like the incredible Hulk. Yeah I know, it’s horrifying! But I do know that you already exposed to companies who pay big bucks for, maybe a part of, your search engine keywords.
When reading the book “Wie is U?” (it’s Dutch, so I’ll translate it for you: “Who are You?”) I ran into this, well, movie. Documentary. I don’t know how to call it because of it’s style, but they call it a documentary. So I’ll stick to it. This documentary is called “I love Alaska”. It is a very interesting (excuse me for being impolite, I would never wish this to happen to anyone I know and even whom I don’t know!). But still, I think it is very interesting. Because of a black hole in the mind of an AOL coworker, a list which contained the search engine queries from 65.000 people, was public for several days! Still, the people were identified with a generic number, but still, some smart ass people could trace names, addresses and other personal information! Can you imagine how this affects peoples minds? If you want to read more, check the Wiki.

Why do we still trust companies such as Google? I know for one thing that Google is managing a lot of personal information. Information about me, about you, about your cat, parrot, your interests in cars, good looking girls/women. It’s all there somewhere. What if their search engine queries are exposed? When logged in with your Gmail account, you are logged in at all the Google applications. Did you know that you can see your Web history (earlier Google search queries etc)? Everything you do, Google knows! And why wouldn’t they sell your data? Your information about the love of your cat, the interest in good looking girls? Or women. Now, you say, that won’t happen! Well… really? Are you sure? I know I am not sure. In my eyes, why should Google sell your data? If they can come up with more and better services? For you?

I know the story of AOL is an “old” story (2006), but it will help me with my study to digital identity. How can we preserve all our identity blocks without being scared that someday it could be exposed to millions and millions of people? I really want to say to the world: get your privacy issues set on all your social media you are active on! I know I would consider my privacy and my rights to have my own life, not dictated by companies who wants to sell a parrot, or a cat, or set me up with a car I don’t actually want.

But move to Alaska? Meh, The Netherlands is cold enough.