The most dangerous people search on the web is reportedly for “Cameron Diaz”.

According to a McAfee study of the most dangerous celebrity name searches online, Cameron Diaz is #1.

Spammers and virus creators often use famous people searches to lure people to malicious web sites that spread spyware, malware and viruses.

According to the study about 10% of the sites that come up for a search on Cameron Diaz are malicious sites that install viruses and other malicious code on web searchers computers.

[ Whitehatfirm.com ]

Google CEO Eric Schmidt warned that young people will need to change their names to avoid their internet past.

Schmidt claims that the personal lives of young people are so thoroughly documented on social networks like Twitter and Facebook that it will be necessary for them to change their names to hide from their online history.

Schmidt told the Wall Street Journal that people do not understand the consequences of having everything they do online recorded all the time by internet sites.

He also said that he believes that people will be allowed to change their names to avoid embarrassing information and pictures posted on their friends’ social network profiles.

[ Side observation: Searchable facial recognition software will make changing your name and identity a moot point, short of changing your physical appearance. Ironically, Google has invested heavily in facial recognition technology as well. ]

Schmidt also predicted that at some point Google will know so much about people that the search engine will be able to help users plan their lives.

Google will be able to use people’s profiles along with location-based tracking via smart phones and online activities to keep users informed about their surroundings and daily tasks.

Google wants to personalize and automate search to the point where it can predict what people need to find out about before they even think to search for it.

Schmidt ventured into Aldous Huxley-style Brave New World territory by saying: “I actually think most people don’t want Google to answer their questions. They want Google to tell them what they should be doing next.”

Google will know who you are, what your interests are and who your friends are and use this personal data to make suggestions for you.

This isn’t the first time Google’s CEO has made controversial statements on amount of personal data it collects on people through the internet. Last year, he stated: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”

Remember, these are only his public comments on the subject and probably represent just the tip of the iceberg of what Google’s future search plans involve. Interesting stuff, indeed.

[ Source: Telegraph.co.uk ]

A wife and mother of two children has discovered through a people search on Facebook that her husband has another wife and another life.

Lynn France was married to John France in 2005. After suspecting that her husband was cheating on her, Lynn checked her their computer to find a hotel website he had visited before leaving on a business trip.

Lynn and a friend went to the hotel to discover her husband with another woman. The woman told Lynn that they were engaged.

At the request of a friend, Lynn decided to find out if the woman had a facebook page. Lynn found her facebook page which had pictures of her wedding to Lynn’s husband at Disney World.

After the shocking Facebook findings, Lynn filed for divorce in 2009.

Her husband now lives in Florida with his Disney World bride and Lynn’s two sons.

[ Source: NY Daily News ]

Thanks to a people search on the Facebook social network a wallet lost in 2005, along with the $650.00 inside, has been returned to its rightful owner.

Jack Wagster and his friend Nick Gorman were searching for a lost cell phone inside the cushions of the couch when they found a wallet containing $650.00.

The used couch had been purchased from some people in Kirkland, Washington by Nick’s mother.

A people search on Facebook located the rightful owner, Alanna Jensen, who now lives in Arizona.

Alanna lost the wallet at a party in 2005 and was never able to figure out what happened to it until the boys located her on Facebook’s people search and contacted her.

[ Source: The Daily Herald ]

Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan has published an article on the most popular celebrities on Twitter as determined by how many times people search for them on Google.

Using Google’s own keyword search results, Sullivan was able to find out how many times a famous person’s name was searched on Google along with the word “Twitter”.

Here are his results for the most popular Twitter celebrities that people search for on Google:

1. Demetria Lovato – 165,000 Google searches per month.

2. Lance Armstrong – 135,000 monthly searches on Google.

3. Ashton Kutcher – 74,000+ Google searches.

4. Lady Gaga – 74,000 monthly searches.

5. Katy Perry – 49,500 searches.

6. Drizzy Drake – 27,100 Google searches.

7. Bill Simmons – 6,600 searches.

8. Opie ( Opie and Anthony Show ) – 4,400 monthly Google searches.

9. Diablo Cody – 1,600 Google searches.

10. David Pogue – 1,000 monthly Google searches.

There you have it: the most popular celebrities on Twitter as determined by Google people search volume.

[ Source: Search Engine Land ]