Is it OK to Google someone you’re about to meet?

Is it wrong to Google someone before you meet them?

Variations of the question about whether it’s OK to Google someone you’re about to meet regularly arrive from readers. Some readers want to know if it’s OK to do a search for someone prior to a first date, or if that borders on creepy. Others ask if it’s kosher to do a Google search on a person who is about to interview you for a job or, conversely, if it’s OK for an employer to do a Google search on a prospective employee.

Some readers worry they could be violating someone’s privacy by doing a search. They worry if their searches might be misconstrued as stalking or trolling. Others express concern that if the person were to find out they had been searched they would take offense.

Let’s start with the prospective employees. If they know the name of the person who is to interview them, it’s not only OK to search for information about them, it seems wise. On some websites such as LinkedIn, people can see who has viewed their profile. So what? If I see that someone I’m about to interview for a job has looked me up on LinkedIn, my guess is that the person is likely desirous of being as prepared as possible for the interview.

I see no issue with people doing a Google search on someone with whom they’re about to go on a first date. For those who find one another from on online dating app, this seems a no-brainer, a chance to see if the dating profile matches up with what’s available publicly on the internet. For others, it’s an opportunity to learn a thing or two about the date, which could come in handy if the conversation lulls. (Caveat: I have not dated anyone other than the woman I’d eat bees for since the Carter administration, so I am no expert on current dating norms.)

As long as no ill intent is involved, using the internet to find out about someone can be helpful. In courses I teach, I regularly ask students to fill out a personal survey prior to the course’s start. If they mention something they’ve written, I often will look up their writing or other things from their survey. My goal is to get to know my students. If the internet can help me do this, I see that as a good thing.

I do, however, tell students that I am doing this and I encourage them to not freak out if I have been viewing their LinkedIn profile. I would expect that some students Google me prior to class as well since they regularly ask questions or point out a particularly embarrassing piece of writing from my past. I encourage them to be relentlessly curious, which their Googling skills often enable them to be.

If someone asks if you’ve Googled them, don’t lie. They shouldn’t lie to you either if you ask them.

The right thing is to use Google to gather information that might help you get to know something about someone, but never to rely solely on that to do so. There’s no replacement for getting to know someone in person.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

(c) 2025 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should I tell a social media friend that I’m cutting them?

Is it wrong to unfriend someone on social media and not tell them that you’ve done so?

A reader we’re calling Niamh recently decided to cull her list of friends and contacts on social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and X. Over the years, Niamh had accepted many requests to connect from people who she didn’t really know or only knew remotely. While she knows she could snooze a friend’s posts for several weeks so her feed wasn’t full of things she didn’t care about, increasingly she found she was receiving messages from people on her contacts list asking for introductions to her other real friends, for help finding a job or for requests that she meet talk with them about some sort of service they offered.

Niamh knows she could simply ignore such messages, but the temptation not to do so overcomes her. She also knows she could consider deleting some of her social media accounts, but she doesn’t care to do that because she sometimes finds them useful to stay connected to friends and colleagues who she actually does know.

Niamh has decided to go through her lists of friends and contacts on each of her social media sites and unfriend or unfollow anyone whose name she doesn’t recognize as well as those people with whom she only has a remote connection. She plans to start by unfollowing anyone she doesn’t really know who has sent her an unsolicited message asking her for something.

While this can be a time-consuming activity, Niamh is convinced it will be worth it if her lists of connections and friends consists of people with whom she’d truly like to stay connected. But Niamh wonders if she has any obligation to let at least some of the people who are on her disconnect list know that she’s disconnecting from them. She did, after all, agree to connect with them even if she can’t remember why she did so beyond trying to be nice.

Is it wrong, she asked, to simply dump them and say nothing?

While it may feel callous to do so, there is absolutely nothing wrong with unfollowing or unfriending someone if that person wasn’t really someone you knew or wanted to be connected with. It’s not like shunning someone at the high school lunch table or telling colleagues they are no longer welcome to join you and others for a casual lunch. Even in the latter case, you wouldn’t tell someone they aren’t welcome to join you. You just would invite the people you wanted to have lunch with and leave it at that.

It's unlikely, but if some unfriended contacts notice they’ve been cut and send hostile messages, then Niamh can choose to block them and their messages. But given that they likely don’t know Niamh any better than she knows them, the result of her cuts is most likely to be silence.

The right thing is for Niamh to decide whom she’d like to stay connected with and then stay connected with them and lose the others if she’s willing to put in the time to do so.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

(c) 2025 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Should reviewers disclose receiving compensation?

Is it wrong not to disclose being compensated to endorse a product?

Twenty-six years ago, after I had finished writing the manuscript for a book on business ethics, the publisher asked me for the names of people who might read and write endorsements for the book. I dutifully came up with the list and the publisher sent copies of the book galleys to the names I provided, plus others my editor had come up with to ask if they’d consider writing something.

Many of those contacted graciously offered to write an endorsement and sent them to my publisher. One of the contacted reviewers, the retired CEO of an aerospace company, offered to write a short introduction for the book. None of those who took the time to read the book and write endorsements were compensated for the task – not even the retired CEO who put quite a bit of time and thought into his introduction. Whether endorsements actually help sell a book is hard to know, but I am grateful to each of them for having done so.

One person contacted, however, responded with what I recall as a one-page list of the types of reviews she might provide along with a price attached to each. I had only met this person once at a charity dinner where we were seated at the same table. But I had been familiar with her and her business for several years since we had written about her and her company in the magazine where I served as an editor just before I finished writing the book.

I found her request for compensation odd at the time and thought that if she didn’t have time to read the book and write something, it would have been better for her to decline the opportunity to do so. But had I taken her up on her offer to write something, I would have been obligated to disclose to readers that she had been paid to do so.

I’ve long believed that journalists should disclose if they are receiving compensation – whether in goods or services – as part of an effort to write whatever it is they are writing. Readers have the right to know, for example, that a travel writer is receiving free airfare, lodging and meals if they are reviewing some hot vacation spot. If they are receiving free flights or hotel rooms, it’s likely that readers won’t be able to have a similar experience without spending copious amounts of money.

Some travel publications don’t permit writers to accept such freebies. Many of those that do disclose if writers are receiving free goods and services. As long as a reader is made aware of such transactions, I don’t find anything wrong with the practice.

The same is true with groups of influencers who are given products to write about. You’ll find many of the reviews on Amazon.com, including those for books I’ve written, end with a sentence such as “I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion.”

Not disclosing to readers or users when a reviewer receives free goods or services in exchange for writing a review is wrong. The right thing is to be as transparent as possible so a reader is fully informed. It’s also OK to simply say “no” to invitations to review if you’d simply prefer not to.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

(c) 2025 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Is it OK to lie if it would help you get what you want?

 If you can't get what you want, is it OK to lie to get what you need? 

A reader we're calling River cares deeply about her grandson who left public high school during his junior year. He then attended a special public school to work on getting his GED (general educational development) certificate that provides individuals with the equivalent of a high school diploma. While her grandson passed the language arts portion of the examination, he did not pass the math-science portion so he did not earn his GED.

River's grandson, who is now 21, has had trouble finding a job without a high school diploma. "He has only had one job that lasted a month," wrote River. 

A friend of River's who is 50 years old told her that he also had dropped out of high school and did not earn his GED. For years, he told River, he applied for jobs and didn't get them because he indicated on job applications that he had neither a high school diploma or a GED. "Ten years of experience didn't seem to matter to employers," wrote River. But her friend told her that he decided to start answering that he did have a GED on job applications and he was never questioned about it. "It helped him get employment," wrote River. 

"Here's my question," River wrote me. "Is it ethical to encourage my grandson to lie about having a GED?" 

While it might help River's grandson be considered for more jobs, she should not encourage him to lie about his credentials. That her friend never got caught lying doesn't justify having her grandson misrepresent himself. It also sets a bad example for River to suggest to her grandson that lying is an acceptable way to get what you want. Too often, it's not the first lie you tell that gets you into trouble, but the subsequent lies you tell to cover up that first lie.

It would be a better option for River to encourage her grandson to keep trying to get the GED if he believes he truly needs it to get a job. There are any number of free online GED counseling services. 

There's no guarantee that River's grandson will pass the math portion of the GED even if he completes the GED Classroom course. But most states will let you retake the GED exam even after failing it, although some require a waiting period if you fail it three times. 

Perhaps the best thing for River to do is to encourage her grandson to keep trying and to not let failure on a portion of the test keep him from trying again. Providing encouragement and support is the right thing to do. Lying is not.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

(c) 2025 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

To get something done, stay focused

How important is focus when it comes to facing challenging issues?

In the Pixar animated movie “Up,” there’s a character named “Dug.” Dug is a dog who wears a special collar that translates what he’s thinking into words. At regular intervals during the movie, we hear Dug yell “Squirrel!” and then he stops whatever he was doing and goes in search of the squirrel. Dug, like many of us, is easily distracted.

While Dug’s distractions in the movie are good for a laugh – he is, after all, a lovable dog – they are also a good reminder of the importance of staying focused if we want to have any hope of accomplishing what it is we believe we are setting out to accomplish.

It is indeed challenging to stay focused when there are many issues facing us at the same time. Among these issues are: inflation, crime and violence, hunger and homelessness, the economy, affordable health care, illegal immigration, drug addiction, international terrorism, domestic terrorism, racism, unemployment, gun violence, the quality of education, climate change…and these are just the top items of concern to Americans according to the Pew Research Center and Gallup.

One can easily spend the day reading up on each of these issues from any number of sources and then spend the next day mapping out how to learn or engage more on the issues. That each of us can easily list items not included on the Pew or Gallup lists is a stark reminder of the magnitude of concerns that greet us every day.

It's also a reminder of just how easy it is to lose focus of whatever challenge we happen to be facing at any moment. An intense job search, for example, easily can turn into a deep dive online into some issue or other as a result of researching a potential employer. The next thing you know an hour or two or a day has been lost. It’s also very possible to lose focus when taking a break to make a sandwich and next thing you know you’re meal planning for the next week.

Yes, we can do many things, but I’m not convinced we can do them all at once if we want to do them well. Staying focused is critical if we want to get things done.

The same is true when we find ourselves wrestling with a tough ethical challenge at home or at work. If, for example, we’re being asked to do something that we know crosses ethical lines, it’s easy to lose focus of exactly what it is that concerns us and get caught up in all sorts of tangential worries that will not help us decide how best to proceed. Making sure we gather facts to make a sound decision is important. But gathering facts that have little to do with the challenge facing us can distract us from getting anything done. Perhaps most importantly we should focus on prioritizing which challenges are most important to tackle first.

Staying focused when facing tough challenges is the right thing to do, no matter how many squirrels cross our path.

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues.

Do you have ethical questions that you need to have answered? Send them to jeffreyseglin@gmail.com.

Follow him on Twitter @jseglin.

(c) 2025 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.