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It’s everyone’s dirty secret. We all stalk people online. We all have a nosey at people on their social channels. Admit it, you have stalked someone online. Whether it’s a potential date, new colleague or old school friend are we becoming a nation of virtual stalkers. Heading straight to LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter to form an opinion of someone.

I stalk. There, I said it. My name is Philip and I am a Digital Stalker. It’s quite boring though. I really just stalk people who I am interested in doing business with. I have a look at their LinkedIn profile, I Google them and I have a look at any tweets they may have sent.

To me it’s like an extended business card. I get a little bit of an idea as to who they are and what they do but nothing more than that. Corporate Digital stalking is good for business in my view, especially for people like me who are terrible with names and faces. If nothing else, it saves me some embarrassment at conferences when I have to start every introduction with, “buddy”, “chief”, “mate”, etc.

“We all have a digital footprint, an indelible impression of who and what we are online.”

A recent survey from match.com found 48% of women will research a potential date online before deciding whether to go along. On the surface you can see the thinking here. We all have a digital footprint, an indelible impression of who and what we are online. Surely this imprint will give some insights in to who we are and what we like? If you went on a date with someone from your hometown, you would ask people in your hometown what he or she was like. Is “Digital Stalking” not a logical extension of that?

The big change since the rise of Web 2.0 is that we now put ourselves on display in the digital world. We publish our lives on to a page for people to read, we leave a trail of breadcrumbs by liking, creating and engaging with digital content. This has not been possible before. Well, it was possible, you could stand on your doorstep and shout at passers by and tell them what you like, while showing them a slide show of your holiday snaps but you would have been locked up fairly quickly. The digital world has amplified the persona but does that mean there is no privacy?


“Privacy is not just about keeping everything private, it’s about the ability to control what is private and what is not.”

According to the all knowing Wikipedia, “Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to keep their lives and personal affairs out of public view, or to control the flow of information about themselves.”. Privacy is not just about keeping everything private, it’s about the ability to control what is private and what is not. To that end, we can control what certain people can stalk about us depending on the situation and person in hand.
This is where the rise of social discovery sites becomes interesting. Your social discovery profile is the front door to your digital world. It is the front face of your digital self to things and people that you don’t yet know. Like a door it should be safe, secure and give away just enough information to connect you. You can see the world from your front door without connecting to it. You can lean over the gate and see what is going on and decide what you want to join in with without letting everyone see everything about you. Your social networks are something more personal, because by definition, you know your network and therefore you are happy to share more with them. You are happy that they may stalk your albums (though not the one marked “Ibiza 03”). You are happy they may know more about you.

We are a nation of stalkers but that’s ok. If we understand the levels of privacy available and protect ourselves appropriately, then its ok to find out a bit more about someone. It’s ok to have a look and see what they look like or what they like doing. It’s a part of living in a digital world.