45 Conversations Media & Education Ltd.

Early Learning & Child Care Consulting + Online ECE Workshops

Consider this…Google never forgets

by Leave a Comment

Great post by Seth Godin over the weekend…here is the part that stood out to me:

Google never forgets.

Of course, you don't have to be a drunk,
a thief or a bitter failure for this to backfire. Everything you do now
ends up in your permanent record. The best plan is to overload Google
with a long tail of good stuff and to always act as if you're on Candid
Camera, because you are.

This is something we should all keep in mind.  My question though is how do we help our children (especially teens) to understand what this really means?  Of course, virtually all kids can get up to some mischief (or worse) as they grow up…but as parents how do we protect them from living through their mistakes in such a public and potentially lifelong way?  It is an automatic parental response to want to shelter our kids from difficult and challenging public situations;  but really is this even possible now?

Take Facebook's recently revised terms as another example; the reality is that there is very limited control about what ends up online about both ourselves and our children. 

By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically
grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant,
to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable,
fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use,
copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt
(in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose,
commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the
Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or
incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and
authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.

Like many of the other dangers that face our children as they grow and develop; perhaps the best source of protecting them is by informing them.  Parents must explain what things like an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable,
fully paid, worldwide license actually means.  Help your kids to understand how and why "Google never forgets". 

Certainly none of this is an an easy task when dealing with kids who think that their parents "just don't get it" and that the "times have changed".  Remember thinking that?  Certainly – yes – the times have changed, as has the technology and the ways in which the various generations communicate.  Nevertheless, we owe it to our kids to keep them safe from poor online decisions that are made today which may actually harm and haunt them tomorrow.