I had never thought about googling myself until today. What changed? I had my first experience with cyberstalking and harassment.

I'll spare you most of the details and just sum it up...

I got an email from a man today trying to get in touch with my husband regarding a former business of his that has been closed for several months. My husband has not been responding to him because, well, the business is closed. How did this man get my email address? Google. In an attempt to contact my husband he googled my husband's name and then emailed anyone he could find that was associated with him according to google. Myself and several of Will's friends received emails from this man. After talking with Will, the man has found out where he works and tries to contact him on his work phone number and work email address.

STALKER!

At first, I was just flustered. Owning a business, you deal with all sorts of whack-jobs and it is not the first time Will has had to deal with some crazy person. Then, I really got disturbed... almost scared. That's when I googled myself. I was absolutely amazed at the amount of my information that is out there on the internet.

I have several business websites, facebook, google+, pinterest, formspring, blogs, etc. that you could find by simply searching my first and last name. I changed my settings on all of my social media to not be searchable via internet search engines and removed my full name from websites and blogs. I really don't know what else to do... aside from delete it all!

Even CRAZIER...



websites like S-P-O-K-E-O dot com (remove the dashes and just google it... I'm literally scared to link to them or even have their name listed correctly!!). This website lists EVERYTHING about you! Addresses and phone numbers and social media and... income... seriously!

Normally I would shrug it off, but something about this has me spooked. Maybe it's the baby on the way? I just don't like knowing that someone can simply know my name and find out where I live and all kinds of other personal information! There are PSYCHOS in this world that don't need that sort of info!

So... now I'm paranoid about some crazy stalker finding my address on the internet and coming to my house and stealing my baby... fabulous.