Identity management: the future of privacy?

The nature of privacy of is changing.  This should come as no surprise to anyone, since the pace of technological change has rapidly outpaced our existing social and legal norms.Some have argued that privacy is now a right reserved only for the rich. This story of the Seattle City Light company reinforces that view. According to the Seattle Times, City Light's contract with Brand.com to manage its image focused more on CEO Jorge Carrasco's personal Google results than on the company itself.Seattle City Light paid Brand.com $17,500 for the contract, which focused on expunging a particular Seattle Weekly article from Google search results.

In particular, the records show, Carrasco was aggravated by a negative Seattle Weekly article from 2008 that kept popping up in search results about him. As late as last month, Carrasco and a top aide were exploring whether they could get the piece expunged from Google entirely. 

That original story focused on Carrasco's high-handed management style, and argued that he "decimated employee morale," and revealed his nickname as "Jorge Fiasco."On the surface, this story appears to be about misuse of public money for personal use. But digger deeper, what it is really about is two things.

1. Identity management is work: I have found repeatedly in my research on productivity that individuals are increasingly tasked with achieving, monitoring, and policing their online images. This kind of work is increasing in scope and effort.
2. Privacy is for the rich: because reputation management is increasing in its scope and effort required, privacy itself is now a job. Obviously in this context, those with means can better marshal resources to protect their identities. Individuals without time, resources or skill to manage their identities will have a more difficult time.

In short, we are seeing productivity increasingly involving improving one's image. Tools like Social Sweeper are already offering resume "cleaning" services -- to those who can afford it.When will more traditional productivity tools offer the same services? And how much will they cost?