Deodorant? Check. Food-free teeth? Check. Googled your date? Check. When it comes to modern courtship, cyber-stalking is increasingly part of pre-date preparation.About 43 per cent of people on a dating-service survey said they type their date’s name into the Google search engine before they go out. And 88 per cent of those people said they wouldn’t be bothered if their dates did the same.‘‘It’s just a new avenue to learn about a new destination, a new book or your date,’’ said Alana Beyer of It’s Just Lunch, the dating service that surveyed 1,167 people on its website.Jennifer Eidson (36) of Auburn, Googled one date just to make sure he wasn’t a murderer. He wasn’t; she married him.‘‘It’s just a precaution. It’s like carrying Mace,’’ she said.Try Googling yourself and see the mishmash that pops up. If you don’t like what you see—maybe there’s a critique of your work or another person with the same name who happens to be listed on a sex-offender registry site—don’t bother calling Google.‘‘Users must contact the Web master of that page directly,’’ wrote Google spokeswoman Eileen Rodriguez in an e-mail. ‘‘We’re committed to providing thorough and unbiased search results for our users; we cannot participate in the practice of censorship.” As they say, it’s love at first Google. —NYT
