Are These Social Media Practices Endangering Your Privacy and Your Kids' Privacy?

July 2010

New developments or types of social media launch almost daily. Because such Internet-based applications or programs enable individuals and groups to connect easily and openly to share all types of information, you or your children may be putting private information at risk. Often, you may not be aware just how much or what information you are sharing.

Here are just a few recent examples. In late April, Facebook, the largest social network, launched new features including Open Graph/Instant Personalization, with default settings that said yes to sharing more information with third-party sites unless you opted out. Although consumer pushback forced Facebook to make some positive changes, there are still potential privacy problems. In February, Google introduced its new social networking program, Buzz. By enabling it by default for all Gmail users (rather than offering the option to opt in or not), Buzz then would follow everyone in the Gmail user's contact list. In June, Yahoo announced its intention to build social networking Yahoo Updates using the Yahoo email database. Beyond such controversial participation protocols, however, much more is happening in the social web universe. Did you see where the Library of Congress is going to archive public tweets on Twitter (and the vast majority of tweets are public)? Then there's Blippy, an application that automatically shares all your credit card purchases. The list goes on.

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