If we know are being surfaced this way we can then start to manipulate the data being found. For example, knowing what I know now about my Amazon wish list I shall now add some more thoughtful titles like: “Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance” and “101 Things Not to Say on an Interview!”

We as individuals choose to give away our privacy for the sake of convenience. For example, we create wish lists on Amazon so that our friends may conveniently find gifts for us. But that same convenience is quire revealing, like Ami’s wish list which includes a book on Barbies

Privacy is a matter of choice. How much information your reveal is entirely up to you as an individual.

That said, if you choose to reveal something private and people in positions of trust abuse that knowledge then they are behaving unethically and perhaps immorally.

Lets say and individual chooses a particular lifestyle which may be unagreeable to a “moral majority” and that individual chooses to reveal this part of their life in social places like their Flickr profile, their Amazon Wishlist, their MySpace page and so on - all intended to be for personal sharing among friends.

Now lets say that a person with hiring authority were to become aware of that revealing piece of information regarding a potential applicant. Ethically, in my opinion, the authority has been given a trust much like the trust they are given when we have a private conversation with them during our interview. The authority would be obliged to keep that information to themselves and not share it outside of the medium in which it was found, be that an interview or a social networking website like facebook, etc.

They are also obligated not to take that information into consideration when makin a hiring decision. In particular they should not take negative action against the individual who has chosen to share that private information in an online social context where its unintended for work purposes.

So do we need guidelines? Yes, but they should be the same moral and ethical guidelines we would adhere to with our employees.

Let me explain - say that same individual whas not an applicant but rather an employee. Would that hiring decision maker - now the individuals manager - be able to take any action against an individual based on the information about their lifestyle? No. If they did, and it could be proven tha they did, their judgement could land them in hot water.

So I propose the standard should be to treat peoples private information - yes even if its online - as private, and to treat a candidate’s privacy as we would an employees. Then I feel we should all be safe from an ethics dilemma.

Naturally, I plugged my name in to give it a whirl. I guess being freaked out by what is actually public domain and freely available - albeit deeply buried — can be offset by results like this listed under News Articles:

Download Authoria’s complimentary white paper
Interbiznet Bugler (press release), CA - 19 hours ago
(June 04, 2007) Amitai Givertz is the cause of some of the most interesting thinking in today’s Recruiting Industry. While much of the ongoing dialog is …

But “ooh, I’m famous” — the stuff about us we want to push — aside, doesn’t “unfettered” to access to this type of information — public domain or not — also raise the questions of trust and professionalism? How should recruiters be applying this data and how to you define “ethical” use? What is the potential for abuse of tools like pipl? What is the potential downside for an employer and should they be making sure guidelines are in place for their recruiters to follow?