The Emerging Phenotropic Identity

Robert Lucky’s column brings up the question of identity on the Internet. In contrasting the old identity with the new, Google/Flickr/YouTube/MySpace/FaceBook one he points out that “Now you’re at the mercy of what other people and what various computer algorithms think of you.” His example reminded me of an older post about interviewing in an era of long-lived databases. Are we seeing the emergence of the phenotropic identity?