True enough. I'm probably pretty happy that nothing I wrote or photographed got online anywhere without going through an editor until well after college. And in pre-digital/smartphone days a heck of a lot less was recorded for prosperity than today. Not a lot of pictures from parties etc. even in my archives (and I did a lot of photography undergrad).
And, although I assume I'm in various Usenet archives, my participation there was always from a work address and was pretty tame. (BBSs mostly were too although all that content is gone anyway AFAIK.)
I know there are already firms that do online history scrubbing of people who get some warning that they're about to be entering the public eye, but that kind of thing is probably going to be a major growth area. Even if there's content out there that's beyond one's ability to clean up, just being forewarned/reminded of its existence could be an advantage.
I could definitely picture political parties and businesses being willing to pay $$$ for an internet presence dossier as part of their larger candidate vetting process.
Oct 29 12:28:53 <Cambion> we have logs that date back to 1993 and identify pretty much everyone from nickname change to nickname change
Oct 29 12:28:59 <Cambion> phone numbers, everything
And, although I assume I'm in various Usenet archives, my participation there was always from a work address and was pretty tame. (BBSs mostly were too although all that content is gone anyway AFAIK.)