Anonymity through Commonality

Given the Tyranny of Numbers in which more and more information is being added to the Internet, it made me wonder how that effects my Sphere of Influence.

I think that many of the search engines out there use some sort of formula in order to determine how to display their results. It is unclear to me why something makes it to the top of the list, but I would guess that it is based upon popularity. So, when you "Google" my name, you find an Alaskan hiker… or a Football Player.

Because of the commonality of my name, it makes it very difficult to find "me"… unless you know what to look for. This is either good or bad depending on what you want.

• It is good in that people cannot find you based strictly on your given name. You have to know more about my Name—Category to know you truly found "me".
• It is bad when I want people to actually find "me". You have to scroll through a lot of irrelevant stuff in order to find "me".

Much like your Carbon Footprint your Internet Footprint grows the more you add to it. So, hopefully I can add to my Internet Footprint and work my way up the results ladder by sheer numbers.