Itsme
08-12-2005, 09:19 AM
Google search could make or break a date
By Gina Kim
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE
August 11, 2005
Deodorant? Check.
Food-free teeth? Check.
Googled your date? Check.
When it comes to modern courtship, "cyber-stalking" is increasingly part of the pre-date preparation.
About 43 percent of people who answered a dating-service survey said they type their date's name into the Google search engine before they go out. And 88 percent of those people said they wouldn't be bothered if their dates did the same thing.
It's love at first Googling.
"Technology has changed so many things," said Alana Beyer, senior communications manager for It's Just Lunch, the dating service that surveyed 1,167 people on its Web site. "It's just a new avenue to learn about a new destination, a new book or your date."
While the Google doesn't keep numbers on how many people use the site to research love interests, it certainly happens, company spokeswoman Eileen Rodriguez said.
"It's helping people find the information they need," she said.
Jennifer Eidson, 36, of Auburn, Googled one date just to make sure he wasn't a murderer.
He wasn't; she married him.
"It's just a precaution. It's like carrying Mace," said Eidson, who works as a mortgage underwriter. "To me, it's like a mini-background check."
Allegra Kim, 37, of Sacramento, does a Google search before every date she goes on. She also tells a relative or friend the name of the person she is seeing as a precaution.
"If you get to know someone over time at work or school, you know what their story is. But if you meet someone at a party or something, you don't really know anything about them," said Kim, an epidemiologist for the state Department of Health Services.
Kim admits she might be a little more paranoid than most, but she thinks the resource is there to be used.
"I see it as the kind of thing, 'Why would I not do this?' " she said. "It seems silly not to get a little bit of information if you can get it."
The guys Kim tends to date, techy and academic types, usually have large e-trails on the Internet – personal Web pages, published articles and even photographs of their pets.
She suspects many Google her, too. Recently, she and a date giggled when they realized that they had Googled each other.
Beyer, from It's Just Lunch, cautions against believing everything one sees on the Internet. Not everything is true, and people with common names easily can be mistaken for someone else.
Just try Googling yourself and see the mishmash that pops up. And if you don't like what you see – maybe there's a critique of your work or another person with the same name who happens to be listed on a sex-offender registry site – don't bother calling Google.
In deciding the order of its responses, the search engine doesn't rely on how often the critical word appears on a Web page, but factors in the links to other pages – a relevancy ranking system.
"Users must contact the Web master of that page directly," Google spokeswoman Rodriguez wrote in an e-mail. "Google views the comprehensiveness of our search results as an extremely important priority."
By Gina Kim
NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE
August 11, 2005
Deodorant? Check.
Food-free teeth? Check.
Googled your date? Check.
When it comes to modern courtship, "cyber-stalking" is increasingly part of the pre-date preparation.
About 43 percent of people who answered a dating-service survey said they type their date's name into the Google search engine before they go out. And 88 percent of those people said they wouldn't be bothered if their dates did the same thing.
It's love at first Googling.
"Technology has changed so many things," said Alana Beyer, senior communications manager for It's Just Lunch, the dating service that surveyed 1,167 people on its Web site. "It's just a new avenue to learn about a new destination, a new book or your date."
While the Google doesn't keep numbers on how many people use the site to research love interests, it certainly happens, company spokeswoman Eileen Rodriguez said.
"It's helping people find the information they need," she said.
Jennifer Eidson, 36, of Auburn, Googled one date just to make sure he wasn't a murderer.
He wasn't; she married him.
"It's just a precaution. It's like carrying Mace," said Eidson, who works as a mortgage underwriter. "To me, it's like a mini-background check."
Allegra Kim, 37, of Sacramento, does a Google search before every date she goes on. She also tells a relative or friend the name of the person she is seeing as a precaution.
"If you get to know someone over time at work or school, you know what their story is. But if you meet someone at a party or something, you don't really know anything about them," said Kim, an epidemiologist for the state Department of Health Services.
Kim admits she might be a little more paranoid than most, but she thinks the resource is there to be used.
"I see it as the kind of thing, 'Why would I not do this?' " she said. "It seems silly not to get a little bit of information if you can get it."
The guys Kim tends to date, techy and academic types, usually have large e-trails on the Internet – personal Web pages, published articles and even photographs of their pets.
She suspects many Google her, too. Recently, she and a date giggled when they realized that they had Googled each other.
Beyer, from It's Just Lunch, cautions against believing everything one sees on the Internet. Not everything is true, and people with common names easily can be mistaken for someone else.
Just try Googling yourself and see the mishmash that pops up. And if you don't like what you see – maybe there's a critique of your work or another person with the same name who happens to be listed on a sex-offender registry site – don't bother calling Google.
In deciding the order of its responses, the search engine doesn't rely on how often the critical word appears on a Web page, but factors in the links to other pages – a relevancy ranking system.
"Users must contact the Web master of that page directly," Google spokeswoman Rodriguez wrote in an e-mail. "Google views the comprehensiveness of our search results as an extremely important priority."