My Internet Identity

When searching my name on the internet, a lot of the results that I would expect is what I saw.

The first thing I searched was my name on Google. I've done this before so I had an idea of what to expect. The first two results were links to my Facebook and Twitter page. When navigating to these sites, I realized there was more information that the public can see than I initially thought. On my Facebook, anyone could have access to all of my profile pictures and cover photos. I previously thought my profile was completely private. On my Twitter page, nothing is set to private, so anyone that wants to read my tweets, can.

The next few results had to do a lot with my high school football career and disc golf. I am part of the Professional Disc Golf Association, so there was a link to my player profile page. Other links included results to a lot of tournaments around the state and a few articles that I've been mentioned in. As far as football, there was a link to my Hudl profile page, which showed my highlights from high school. There was also a link to my Wissports profile, showing my statistics from my football career.

After the generic Google search, I searched my phone number on Whitepages. When doing this, it told me that my phone is through Sprint and is located on the southside of Sheboygan. I then went to the New York Times Mapping America. I found out that in my home town, the median average household income ranged greatly, depending on the area. In the heart of the city of Sheboygan, there were spots where the median household income was $22,000- $24,000. Just outside of the city, where I live, the median household income was just under $70,000. The racial and ethnic group distribution in my immediate area was 92% white, 1% black, 1% hispanic, 5% asians, and 1% other. When I zoomed out and looked at Sheboygan county as a whole, the distribution was relatively similar: 88% white, 1% black, 5% hispanic, 4% asians, and 1% other.

An interesting twist to my internet identity is that I have a distant relative that lives in Wyoming with the same first and last name as me. For most of my life, I have gone by Jake instead of Jacob. When searching Jacob Pribbernow, instead of Jake Pribbernow, on Google, the first hit that comes up is a link to my relatives Facebook page instead of mine. From there on, its generally a mix between links associated with him and links associated with me.

If someone were trying to create a profile of me based off of Google search results, they could potentially be looking at the complete wrong person depending on if they used Jake or Jacob. If they did choose the correct name, the would most likely assume that I am in the age range of 18-22. They would see that I participated in a lot of sports throughout my life and have a lot of social media profiles. Although most of these profiles are mostly private, they would still be able to consolidate information from all of them and put together a relatively accurate representation of me.