I caught up with Antony Mayfield after reading his recently published book: Me and My Web Shadow. He kindly agreed to talk further about some of the issues covered in the book.

Over the next few days I’ll post his comments on dealing with common names in networks, duplication in networks, syncing updates between personal networks and web serendipity.

Antony has created a category on his blog for updates about the book.

How do you manage your web shadow if you’ve got a common name such as John Smith?
The most important question to ask is: can people find me when they want to? What will they do when they are looking for John Smith? Well, most of us would start adding keywords to Google searches like your job, companies you have worked for, where you have lived. John Smith may not appear in the top results for his own name, but he should appear for “John Smith Acme Widgets Ltd”. Making sure a current photo of you is on your LinkedIn, Google and personal websites is also going to help make sure people don’t miss your profile or mistake someone else for you.

When establishing your web presence – personal website, social network profiles – it is important to make sure they include some of these keywords that are part of how people will want to find you. You might also think of adding addresses to your website and key profiles (LinkedIn and Twitter for work) and other places on your emails, both personal and corporate accounts so people can by-pass Google when they want to find out more about you.

The other thing to think about it is making yourself stand out from the crowd a little. Many people use a common name for their Twitter profiles and the like that is specific to them (for instance, Wadds). Keep that consistent (and your avatars/profile pictures) so it will be easier for people to recognise you in different networks.

Should we be concerned that Google is recording our every interaction on the web?
First of all, we should be aware that this is happening, and not just with Google either. Although people who work with the web a lot know this, many people don’t understand how much data is being gathered by them.

Google itself is a benign guardian of our personal data and the pay-off of free services and access to their technology seems to be a deal most of us are happy to make for the moment. The fear some rightly have is about who will have access to that data in the future? What will Google be like in 20 years time and who will own it? This is an important and ongoing debate.

Eric Schmidt, Google’s COO, says that the company would like to make it possible for people to take all of their search data with them – it would be good for Google to make it clear that we can all have access to and the right to delete all of our own data if we wish. As the volume and importance of the personal data held by Google (and others) grows, I would like to see them staying ahead of both governments and citizens in putting in governance structures and safeguards against abuse. They have to keep earning our trust.