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Comment by rm_-rf_slash | Hacker News Reader

I'm lucky in that I'm pretty sure my combination of first and last name is a first in history, but I feel for the "William Johnson"s of the world. He is lucky for having there been a notification about this. He could just have easily been passed over for job offers or more after a quick search and no correspondence, just a "we're not interested."

Maybe the European "right to be forgotten" has something to it after all...

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I'm not searching for a job right now, but I've decided that the next time I do, my resume will also contain a "This is me" that says what is me on HN, reddit, github, etc., and a disclaimer that anything else with that name isn't necessarily me. There are at least two other programmers that share my name, one of which even has vaguely similar programming language skills, to say nothing of all the other hits it gets. And my handle "jerf" is merely rare, not unique, and not everything that comes up under that is stuff I'm associated with either.

I recommend this to everybody.

I feel reasonably secure that "Morgante Pell" is globally unique and "morgante" is only slightly less so.

I'm the only living person with my name, and websites still confuse me with other people. Not only deceased people, but there's also a couple of clueless middle-aged people I've never heard of that used my gmail address to sign up for various websites - my gmail is first initial + last name, and that is not only clearly not unique but also confusing to some older people.

+1. I'm talking to you Sharon! I'm tired of getting your loan application details and RNC propaganda delivered to my inbox.

I'm just as annoyed at companies that don't bother with any kind of email confirmation click-through before sharing personal information though. I even frequently get one-click links to edit people's profiles with all their personal details.

If it includes a phone number I send them a polite text and ask them to be more careful when typing in their email address. I figure a little stranger danger fear might help motivate them to stop signing me up to be spammed.

OTOH I'm seriously considering leaving behind my many years old GMail at this point. I really only use it as an identity service for other site's logins 99% of the time. I just don't know what the options are and I don't feel like signing up for something that might not be around next year.

I have an ultra-common first and last name combination, and I've never had a problem in the job market. I don't think that it works the way you think it works.

I had an acquaintance named Mike Smith, he was black. Black men get pulled over a lot. When your name is Mike Smith every stop is a felony stop. When he married he appended his wife's last name to his own.

How did the name change prevent him from being stopped?

Since there is only one and only one Mike Whateversmith, the cops couldn't confuse him for someone else.

William Johnson is probably actually pretty safe. It's the people with names just unusual enough that no one has met more than one who have to worry.

For instance, a friend of mine has a somewhat uncommon name. Unfortunately, there's another guy (I think there's only one) on Facebook with the same name who has a borderline racist cartoon as his profile picture. Guess which one comes up first when you search on my friend's name.

> Maybe the European "right to be forgotten" has something to it after all...

All the more dangerous if you can't find out someone is a white supremacist because they've politely asked to have the internet scrubbed all the terrible things they've done.

That's not true at all. If you had those opinions and wanted to keep them to yourself, how could that possibly be a bad thing? Shutting up about biases and intolerance is a fine way to allow clearer thoughts to be heard.

To play devil's advocate, discovering a prospective nanny is a proponent of killing children that look like yours is much better than finding out after you've hired her.

There is a public interest test that could be applied (and is, albeit imperfectly, with the "right to be forgotten").

If said nanny said something 20 years ago and has since changed her views completely it is not really relevant - people's opinions change. If she has actually killed children is very very relevant.

Thinking has become a crime worse than actually doing. Bah.

If you re-read my post you may notice that we are actually in agreement.

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