My personal point of view on whether the HR departments Google your name before they hiring their employees..

 Is the  candidate willing to give his/her consent on HR departments to conduct certain searches on Google? If that's the case (eventhough I am not affiliated with any HR departments) I believe that there should be a certain procedure, cause I don't think there is so far.

So far, it is an ethical issue as it cannot be a legal one.
So I assume that it's more an ethical issue, at least for the time being.

Facebook is designed to limit the availability of your profile to your friends and only those in your other networks via the privacy settings. If you use the privacy features and believe that some employers got into your information unauthorized, then you might have a case.

"However, use of Facebook by potential employers is not addressed the Terms of Use for Facebook. The Terms of Use does say that its use is restricted to personal and non-commercial uses. ”Non-commercial” use means posting information for personal gain, like ads, which is prohibited. However, it does not mean an employer cannot access your information for commercial purposes, like research to make a hiring decision." (Potter 2008). It is difficult for the candidate to prove that kind of case, namely that he/she was rejected because of her FB account (maybe it could be proven through the a Freedom subject access request in an public organisation where the candidate could ask for the email correspondence, in case she/he feels that he/she was rejected by virtue of his online activity).
However, in the UK, could happen the same like Germany:http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/germany-plans-limits-on-facebook-use-in-hiring/



What happens in terms of authenticity?? Is it the right candidate the person that the HR has spotted or is it a different one? Is there synonymity? What the candidate expresses on his Twitter/FB/LinkedIn account is an exaggeration, figure of speech?
However the previous point of view (authenticity), can be contradicted by the fact that then if the HR is able to find the right candidate by Googling his/her name, then the HR will identify his/her ethnic background. In this case, is the HR going to select this person based on the candidate's ethic background or is the HR going to be effected by his/her photos and comments?
At the same time the HR office by Googling candidates  may find information that are related to the sensitive personal data of a candidate (e.g related to his health or sexual orientation or religious beliefs). For example the candidate on the application form, is not willing to state his religious beliefs, that the HR already know his/her religious beliefs.

There are so many variables, which some of them contradict the others.
I

Based on the above, I gave some examples on some grey areas, that I consider them as grey.

For the selection process (and if Googling help the HR to select the right staff), at least for the time being, I don't think it could assist on the selection process.
However, if the HR departments set some (ethical) rules within the company and they explicitly state on the company's website that e.g. the HR reserves the right to conduct Google search (maybe for its strongest candidates, the ones that were shortlisted), then in that case I don't think it should be a problem.". In that case I believe that it would help with the selection process.

Conducting a thorough search for all candidates I assume it would be time consuming. BuT for the ones that were short-listed, I believe that it is quite reasonable.

Also, it's our responsibility to be able to control our own accounts, in terms of privacy.

For any questions/comments please, by all means you can comment. 

Social networking sites and our lives

OVERVIEW

Questions have been raised about the social impact of widespread use of social networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, and Twitter. Do these technologies isolate people and truncate their relationships? Or are there benefits associated with being connected to others in this way? The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project decided to examine social networking sites in a survey that explored people’s overall social networks and how use of these technologies is related to trust, tolerance, social support, and community and political engagement. 

Click here, if you want to read the full report

Source:  Keith Hampton, Lauren Sessions Goulet, Lee Rainie, Kristen Purcell, Rew Research Center

'Like' Button Follows Web Users

Internet users tap Facebook Inc.'s "Like" and Twitter Inc.'s "Tweet" buttons to share content with
 friends. But these tools also let their makers collect data about the websites people are visiting.


If you want to know more, please click here

Source: Amir Efrati, Wall Street Journal 

How Online Tracking Companies Know Most of What You Do Online (and What Social Networks Are Doing to Help Them)

3rd party advertising and tracking firms are ubiquitous on the modern web. When you visit a webpage, there's a good chance that it contains tiny images or invisible JavaScript that exists for the sole purpose of tracking and recording your browsing habits. This sort of tracking is performed by many dozens of different firms. In this post, we're going to look at how this tracking occurs, and how it is being combined with data from accounts on social networking sites to build extensive, identified profiles of your online activity.


If you want to know more, please click here


Source: Electronic Frontier Foundation, PETER ECKERSLEY