What kind of information do you share online?
Many people aren’t fully aware of how much information they are sharing with other people, companies and users on the internet. Its easy to forget that everything that many of the things you post online quickly becomes documented, archived and picked up by search engines. With a few keystrokes, a stranger could find out more about you than you may realize.
There was recently a lot of buzz about “Please Rob Me“, a website that collected and published when certain users on twitter advertised that they were not at home. Since then, there has been criticism, validation and other reactions to the concept of shedding light on social network information sharing. Please Rob Me has since stopped publishing a live feed of twitter updates, with a message from one of the site’s founders:
Currently we’re looking through the emails we’ve received regarding the future of the website. As soon as we’ve thought of a suitable way to continue, you’ll find it right here. We’re not showing the Twitter messages anymore, as they no longer add anything. If you don’t want your information to show up everywhere, don’t over-share 
Another website, “I Can Stalk U“, has picked up on the same concept, publishing a feed of when certain people blatantly advertise that they will be out of their homes.
“Rob Me Now” is another website that searches for phrases and tags that indicate when someone has left home. A message from the site’s founders says:
Gowalla is a fun application. Geotagging is fun. But please, think before you Geotag. It would be really easy to use 4sq or gowal.la as “todo” list for a burglar – but this is nothing we recommend or encourage! Do not tweet/blog about your vacation plans. Don’t use your voicemail to tell people when you are away. Use email auto responders wisely – don’t tell exactly when you are on vacation.
What Does This Mean?
As facebook is possibly going to be releasing a new location sharing feature soon, it’s extremely important to understand why location sharing is such a big deal. The backlash against websites such as “Please Rob Me” and “I Can Stalk U” has been considerable, with some people even going as far to claim that these sites are participating in “fear-mongering”.
The reality is, of course, subject to personal interpretation, and is defined only with what you feel comfortable with. However, you need to be fully aware of the potential consequences of making your location publicly available. If you aren’t comfortable with a stranger being able to approach you at a restaurant and say “Hey, I saw that you were here from your post on Twitter, so I came here too”, then you should probably be opting out of most location sharing features.
The issue of burglary is another potential consequence of location sharing, which has also recently been highlighted in news stories. A burglar planning to hit a specific neighborhood could search on facebook, twitter or other social networks in order to determine daily schedules. For example, if you are “checking in” twice per week at your yoga class, a burglar would be able to determine that you are usually not home during the same days each week.
What Should I Do?
Here are a few videos to help you to tweak some of your privacy settings. Remember, even with good privacy settings, you should always be mindful of the information that you share online. Never, ever share information that reveals detailed personal information, even to people who claim to be administrators of a social networking website!
Modifying Your Privacy Settings on Facebook
Here is an explanation of how to modify some of your privacy settings on facebook. After new updates to the privacy settings (as well as the default option for many items being “viewable by everyone”), it’s a bit difficult to understand or modify some of the settings. This short video shows how to make some of your data not viewable, or unable to be indexed by third parties.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTpa3AS39uA">
How to Modify Your Privacy Settings on Facebook
This is another explanatory video detailing how you can modify your privacy settings. This video is more recent than the previous video, and also shows you how to opt out of many of the sharing features that are included on facebook. It also includes a more detailed explanation of how to modify and change your settings. Many of these features have the same configuration settings as previous versions of facebook.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGkUA84ftYU">
Identity Theft on Facebook is Easy
This interesting video details a study that a company did about identity theft on facebook. They created a fake profile, and did an experiment to see exactly how many people they could convince to share information with them. Amazingly, a large number of people responded, unknowingly sharing a large percentage of their personal information with the “anonymous” profiles. Keep this in mind next time you respond to a friend request from someone that you don’t know!
Setting up a Twitter Account
This video shows how to set up a very basic twitter account, as well as how to tweak some of your twitter settings. However, this video isn’t focused on privacy, and should only be used as a rudimentary reference. Always modify your twitter settings to reflect the amount of privacy you want to have over who views your information.
**Title Photo Source: http://image3.examiner.com/images/blog/EXID39209/images/resized_foursquare.jpg
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