Crossing a Line

I generally like to think of myself as a laid-back, mellow kind of person. Now, this isn't the most truthful representation of me at all times of every day, but I do alright generally in letting things just slip past without getting my knickers in a bunch. However, as calm, cool, and collected as I like to think I am, I do have quite the list of pet peeves. Some are completely laughable, but out of the list of things that really peeves me are stupid people and people doing stupid things really just irks me.

From time to time, I will Google myself. Vain, perhaps. I don't really use it to boost my ego or anything. Mostly I just am just interested to see if someone with my same name has done anything amusing. Since my name is not common, I tend to see a list of about three things on Google. 1. Sites about wasps in Welsh. 2. A city in Germany. 3. A scholarship I won with my friend my Freshman year of college. So, you can imagine my surprise as I looked down the list and saw a link asking if I was a jerk. This was very much a strange thing for me to see. I mean, sure I can be a snarky, pain-in-the-ass from time to time, but to see a link claiming that I am a jerk? Weird. Of course at this point I have to click on it. The first thing that shows up on this page is a large picture of my face and a bar underneath for people to click one way or the other. Now, I never signed up for this website. Hell, I had never even heard of it. Why would they have this photo of me? My first assumption as to how it got there was me assuming that I had a very unhappy ex-boyfriend who wanted to be the bowling ball under my mattress. Regardless of how it got there, I didn't want it there anymore. There was a button at the top of the page that said, "REMOVE ME." I clicked on it and it brought up this lovely message:

Just because you have a profile on jerk.be does not mean you are a jerk. Less than 5% of the millions of people on jerk.be are jerks. jerk.be is where you find out if someone is a jerk, is not a jerk, or is a saint in the eyes of others. No one`s profile is ever removed because jerk.be is based on searching free open internet searching databases and it`s not possible to remove things from the Internet. You can however use jerk.be to manage your reputation and resolve disputes with people who you are in conflict with. There are also additional paid premium features that are available http://www.jerk.be/signin.php

This causes me to become so incredibly annoyed. This random "company" is taking photos of me (and millions of other peoples' I assume based on their blurb) from my Facebook account to post on their website. And then they have the gall to stick it up on their site telling me that there is no possible way for me to remove it since it was found by searching "free open internet searching databases." But don't worry, I can use all of this stolen material to my advantage to help with my reputation. That is bullshit. There had to be some more serious looking than free open searches to get to that specific photo of me. It is not possible to lock my Facebook page down any further than it is at this moment. Then, if I really wanted, I could pay to have "premium features." No. I refuse to even think about paying for some unknown service that stole my personal photo for their usage. I understand that there are things on the internet that end up free game to people, but locked down, personal photos should not be one of those items. Not now. Not ever.