Ethical considerations on ”refreshing” digitized reputation by changing one’s name

Abstract

In 2010 Google Chief Executive, Eric Schmidt, predicted that people will eventually be allowed to automatically change their names on reaching adulthood to escape their online past. This article attempts to follow up on such an extreme scenario in order to demonstrate the difference between erasing scattered digitized information about people's lives and changing personal names as a method of protecting one's reputation and identity. Such a suggested identity-erasure raises not only considerable legal and ethical considerations but also reveals an emerging stimulating debate on how the law can protect individuals from becoming their worst enemies, ”haunting” them in the form of automated digitized narratives.