CLOSE friends of ours just had their first son and we were just as excited as they were. I immediately remembered a column I wrote a few years ago about managing your identity and also owning your identity online.

Something that happened to a couple in the United States was that they decided on a name for their new baby girl and when they went to Google to see what other famous people have the same name they were bombarded by pornographic websites.

The reason was that the name that they chose for their beautiful baby girl also belonged to a porn star.

The advice I now give to expecting parents is to register the name of their baby even before the birth. In South Africa I would recommend that you register the .com and also the .co.za domains of your baby’s name.

At least try and register the .com if you do not want to also register the .co.za domains. It is not expensive  and  you  should be able to pay less than R100 per year.

You  should  also  of course register your own name. The  advantage  is  that when you register your own name you know that you will have an email address for life. You own the domain and the emails attached  to  it  so  if  you ever change jobs friends and family will still be able to reach you on your private personal email address. Go today and register your name at one of the domain registrars. I recommend www.godaddy.com which is my favourite domain and hosting company.