Too much personal information, protect your identity
Too much personal information, protect your identity!
http://news.uk.msn.com/Article.aspx?cp-documentid=6302186
I got beaten by MSN re facebook.com concerns I had with regards to how easy it is to just add your contact details for the whole world to see.This article was well underway when I got a comment on my blog re http://www.affiliateprogramadvice.com/blog/2007/09/social-networking-your-identity-crisis.htm an article about why people feel the need to lie about who they are. I suppose their argument is, if you tell people who you really are then identity theft is the very reason why some people falsify or mislead others and is a good argument.There can be no denying that there is a real identity theft nightmare waiting to happen, for some users but my question is what percentage on facebook are already are clued up about this? If the stats on the msn article is true, then its too high for sure.
If we use facebook.com as the example here, as soon as you accept a friend or add an application in facebook, “the friend” or creators of the application, they can see all your personal details, email address, telephone number, year of birth, marital status, location, in fact… way too much information.But… what few people have mentioned is that there is already an option to NOT display all this information and it can be located under profile and edit. I have used an old email address and kept everything to the bare minimum. I think facebook.com wanted to facilitate people coming together in terms of business and friendship and has factored in the option to display or not to display and left the choice to the end user. The problem it would seem is that end users are not really using the… not to display option. The fact that it is there, may need to be reinforced by facebook.com, that’s all.
Im not going to jump on the bandwagon and point fingers at facebook.com I have seen far worse in my local tescos when chip and pin was first introduced. I take a risk when ever my credit card is used over the phone or when I throw out my trash.
So.. let’s keep this in perspective and just do our best to protect the less savvy among us
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