The problem is that, in the meantime, GeoCities had been shut down, and the pages that now exist are archived copies saved by folks like ArchiveTeam.org and Archive.org. Because these pages are now archival versions of dead sites, there is no real mechanism for changing or “restricting” them. Of course, from a purely academic standpoint, we might prefer this, since it provides a more complete archival record. But archivists have always had to consider the privacy concerns surrounding records. And does considering privacy become even more important now that something someone wrote in college can be retrieved by a potential employer with two seconds of “googling?” Is there potential for backlash here, particularly as an increasing percentage of the population has essentially lived their entire life online?

So I like the idea of discussing how to facilitate linkages between disparate information sources using names, etc. But I wonder if we should also consider the ethical aspects of the increasing availability and “linkability” of sources, particularly those that might refer to living people.