Your child's personal info in Google

A mom emailed me recently saying she was amazed that people could "Google" her family members' names and turn up their home address in the search results. She's not alone - a lot of people are dismayed by this, but no doubt even more have no idea what Google searchers can find out about them. No need to panic, but that's why parents need to know what their kids are posting in their blogs, Web sites, and online journals (see "A dad on kids' blogs," 3/4/05). I sent her the URL to brief article I wrote on this back in April 2003, including how to remove information from Google (here again is Google's Phonebook Name Removal page. Google has this caveat, though: "Removing your phonebook listing will not remove your personal information from other pages on the web or from other reverse phone listing lookup services." It lists and links to six such services. And that's only the beginning of what people can find out about other people with a little "Google hacking," which - Reuters reports in the latest coverage of this phenomenon - "doesn't require special software or an extensive knowledge of computer code."