Has anybody pretended to be you?

Recently, I discovered that a student thought it would be funny to create a Facebook page, using my name; he pretended to be me.  He doesn’t think it’s so funny anymore.  But anybody can impersonate you online, so I thought it would be useful to tell how to identify if this has happened to you. 

Every couple of months, Google yourself.  Go to Google and in the Search field, enter the name you normally use, and put it in quotes, like this:     ”Fran Lo”    This way Google searches on your name, not on just your first name and just your last name; you’ll you have fewer entries to look at.  You might also want to do a search like:  facebook “my name”    or    myspace  “my name”     You can do this in just a few minutes.

You will be amazed at how many people around the world  have your exact name.  And you may discover something a student has posted about you without your consent.  Because if kids can do stupid things, kids will do stupid things.