I admit it. I've Googled myself. My guess is that you have, too. It's not because we're egomaniacs, but that we're curious to know what turns up. The problem is you couldn't control the information Google delivers about you -- until now.If you don't have a Google profile, there's not all that much you can do to control what others find about you online. What's in the public domain is, well, public. Google's search engine finds what it finds. People who value their privacy probably wish they could do something about that. Now that can.

Google has tweaked its search results, and will now show Google user profiles if they are available. This gives we the people a fractional bit of control over what others see when they search for us.

Google software engineer Brian Stoler explains, "These results offer abbreviated information from user-created Google profiles and a link to the full profiles. We've also added links so it's easy to search for the same name on MySpace, Facebook, Classmates and LinkedIn."

I fired up my Google profile, and sure enough, there are new tools that allow me to choose what is shared. It allows me to add it to my IM status message, link to it in my email signature, and post about it on Twitter.

I decided not to take any steps to modify my profile as it already is, but the options are there. Google notes, "If you want your profile to appear in Google search results, make sure you've selected to display your full name on the Edit profile page. Adding more information will help you improve your profile's rank."

You can also "verify" your profile settings, so people will know that the profile is genuine.

It's not an earth-shattering improvement of end user privacy, but it is something.