Social Intelligence, a company approved a week ago by the Federal Trade Commission, is one that uses deep-search tools to do background checks on other companies’ potential employees. These guys could find your MySpace account, they’re that thorough. And if your deep-search profile doesn’t look good, you don’t get hired.
It’s not too difficult to screen your history of vaguely embarrassing blog posts and Facebook uploads from regular internet-goers, but by the looks of things you’d be safer killing your Facebook page and starting a new one – because not only do the guys at Social Intelligence pick out everything you’ve done online, but they get to keep the information on file for seven years.
Thanks to nebulous laws on whether or not embarrassing photos of you posted online merit privacy concerns, Social Intelligence gets to be another profit-driven company holding on to your information. Social Intelligence CEO Geoffrey Andrews tried to deal with this
during an interview with Forbes, claiming that the data was being held on to, to
“maintain a verifiable chain-of-custody in case the information is ever needed for legal reasons. We are not however building a ‘database’ on individuals.”
All I’m saying is making friends with the untag button is now more important than having a good CV.