I Link You

The irony of securing your ID

Fall semester (or quarter in my case) is a big time for seniors in college who are looking for full-time employment or applying for grants and grad schools. With the rise of social networking sites and increased sharing of personal information, some employers and/or admissions committee members are checking out the profiles of their candidates to get a closer glimpse or another view that is not represented in their applications or resumes. They are getting more than they bargain for as they see antics of drunken craziness or plain bigotry that is listed in their candidates' profiles. Many of my friends who were going through the recruiting process have even deleted or taken down parts of their profiles because they were afraid that prospective employers may see things that my friends don't want to share. It's pretty ironic that we college students are so worried about security even though we pour our hearts out into these social networking sites and blogs.

ClaimID.com apparently is the panacea to our security woes. This site lets you "track, verify, classify, annotize, prioritize, and share information that is about you online." What the hell does that mean? Upon closer examination, the concept is that using this service you can claim, or tag, the information that is about you online. The information is then associated with your name. If people google your name, that is the information or link that will be most relevant. Basically, you have some influence on what links will come up at the top if anyone (i.e. prospective employer) decides to search your name on the internet.

The service is not verified identity. ClaimID does not require Social Security numbers or a fingerprint. It just enables you to collect the information that is about you online in a personal cache. ClaimID supports microformats, has an expanding API, and easily integrates into your blog or website. The service does not claim any of your information as its own and put Creative Commons licenses on all data feeds.

The service is free for all who join during the public beta phase. It's a novel concept. Not that I'm stupid to put things online that I don't want others to see, but I can see many of my friends who would have loved to have this service during the campus recruitment phase.

posted by Koh @ 6:56 PM