UK researchers have revealed that one out of three women use various
search and communication tools to scope out new boyfriends, blind
dates and potential partners.
As reported by Fiona Macgregor in the aptly named Scotsman newspaper,
"The UK poll of 3,000 people by Onetel, a broadband provider,
found women were far more likely to admit to snooping than men,
with just half the number of males confessing they had sneaked a
look at their partners' text messages."
Scottish detectives also note an increase in the number of cases
referred to them that began with a woman entering the name of a
prospective love-interest into a search engine. Macgregor quotes
private investigator Stephen Grant who said he had dealt with more
women than men in such cases. "I don't know if that is because
men are more philandering or women are more suspicious. With Internet
searches, we get people in the early days of a relationship coming
to us after they have found things out - perhaps that a person is
married - and they want us to confirm that."
While some might think being a decent person is enough to counter
bad PR about oneself that might show up on the web, the sheer volume
of random information accumulated about most web-workers online
can be astounding.
For many, a search on their name can produce a lot of difficult
to contextualize results. It is not difficult to see how more than
one person has lost more than one date when incriminating information
about a stranger who happens share the same name frightened away
prospective partners. For instance, an image search on my name produces
a crazy looking guy in a US mid-west church parking lot with a chainsaw.
'nuff said.
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