Googling people

[Bryan]

It goes to follow.  The descrimination laws put in place cover the areas that pmotyko mentioned.  Employers are forbidden to ask any question relating to any of those areas (sex, religion, politics, etc).  They are only allowed to answer questions on those topics provided the potential employee asks the question and they may ONLY answer it to a certain point.  Now If they aren't allowed to ask these questions, how in the hell would they be allowed to go behind someones back and use information that they obtained from a search engine AGAINST them.  

When a potential employer calls a potential employees former employer they are allowed to answer only 3 questions.

Did this person work for you during this time period?
what was this persons rate of pay?
would you rehire this person in the event they requested it?

Now if the former employers goes above and beyond and decides to give the potential employer an earful, they'll regert it.  Many lawsuits have been fougth and won over slander in that exact scenario.  Background checks can be performed on people, but you can bet they will only cover illegal activies.  Any record of illegal activity on a search engine is certainly going to show up on a background check.

[Tyler]

True.  Good point.

[Peter Motyka]

Interesting article/discussion relevent to this topic...

http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/03/19/2231257

[Bryan]

I'm also reminded of the fake Wikipedia article that causes some problems not too long ago.

Don't believe everything you hear on TV needs some adjusting to be "don't believe everything you read on the internet"