Pretty much everyone

 

Google watches you. DoubleClick reads your e-mail. And with your name and one or two other pieces of information, almost anyone can find your address, the names of your relatives, your phone number, your workplace, your vacation photos, and everything else you’ve ever done or said online.

The Internet never forgets. Usenet—the text-only precursor to the World Wide Web—was created in 1980, and for almost twenty years served as the premier forum for nerds and basement dwellers to insult one another semianonymously. It established the tradition of poor behavior, bad writing, and sophomoric humor that serves as the backbone of Internet culture. Google owns an archive of almost the entire history of Usenet. It is not entirely outside the realm of possibility that your mom met your dad on alt.swingers in 1983, and that Google has a detailed archive of the beginning of the romance between them and their six closest Internet friends.

Former classmates, ex-lovers, kids you made fun of in high school—all of these people have access to Google, and through it, to you. Your friends and your enemies can find you, your boss can track down the pictures from that tequila-and-blow hazed weekend in Mexico, and potential employers can find evidence of your poor sportsmanship on Xbox Live. Thanks to the Internet, you’re a public person, and thanks to Google, your skeletons are laid out in alphabetical order for all to see.