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The Internet Never Forgets

Fightdump.com specializes in video of clips of people of all types fighting. On MySpace you have endless pictures and videos of young people who are probably under age, drinking and partying. On YouTube people are engaging in all kinds of activities in order to create their "internet reputation".

The internet never forgets, and those pictures of you looking like a fool will probably be around "forever". Hopefully those impressions won't impede your ability to get into college, or get that job you really want. "Internet Background Check", everyone will be doing it.

The downside of these and other social sites is that in order to attract attention you have to do something unique. And for kids that might not have any real world skills built up yet, unique means "dumb". Of course these dumb actions seem great to the others listed as "friends" on your social profile. And of course, people doing these things don't realize that the picture of them drinking beer out of a hose, will probably be around for the next decade.

I wonder if someday in the future people will end up with a "social score" similar to our current "credit score". All your online actions, emails, downloads, posts, profiles updates, etc. will all be tallied up and rated in some way.

An email from you where you misspell 3 words in the same paragraph, minus 1 social score point for poor education. Did you download the "BeerMe" application from Facebook, minus 1 point for excessive tendencies. Did you download some music or software without paying for it? Minus 10 points for being untrustworthy.

Your Internet Social Score is: 47

Who knows if 47 will be good or bad.

A composite of your internet actions and activities would probably create a "dead-on" social and behavioral profile of what type of person you are. If somehow your entire internet-life could be laid out in a continuous timeline, would it be an accurate self biography? I wonder about this especially for young people that start using the internet early in life. If all your daily internet activities could somehow be assembled, would it be a comprehensive diary of your life?

The internet really is the ultimate "big brother" even though it has not yet come to that. Luckily in the US, we have the Constitution, in the future I hope that will be enough. It probably won't matter, we all seem eager to post so much information about ourselves in public forums. Assembling all of it without violating personal rights seems possible right now.

In the future your "internet life" will be a bundled up piece of information that can be bought, sold, and leveraged in ways we have not yet thought of.

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