Now, we all know that once anything is on the Internet, it may pass from view, but it never dies. I heard on Marketplace the other day that banks and insurance companies are searching our social networks to see if we drink or skydive, in order to set our risk profile and therefore our likelihood for a loan or transaction, or our rate of payment for insurance. In this year (2011), this report did not seem unusual to me.

But then I was surprised this week: Google Alerts pinged me that I had been mentioned in a current (January 2011) blog within GameSetWatch with a link to a presentation I had given (a keynote in Melbourne, Australia, if I recall correctly) about doing business in China. I was at that time building a joint-venture in Shanghai. The blog referenced that the content of the presentation, linked in an audio archive on gaming, was relevant today, 14 years later!

Now, I do remember the presentation, but I actually didn’t pay attention in 1997 that it was being recorded. And more to the point, it never occurred to me that the recording would be archived and re-surface again all these years later.

I don’t mind. It’s just that I wasn’t aware then, and was surprised again today –even though I was consulting to Internet companies in 1997.

So be wary — not only is what you post about yourself up in cyberspace forever, everything that you do that is digitally captured is available to arrive there, now or later.