“The whole social networking phenomenon has millions of people sharing their photos, favorite songs and details about their class reunions on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and dozens of similar sites. But there are a handful of personal details that you should never say if you don’t want criminals — cyber or otherwise — to rob you blind,” according to some experts.
This article contains practical suggestions about ill-considered online activities which can have negative consequences in our real (off-line) lives.
Some might argue that these suggestions are common sense, others might argue that it is not very common anymore. In any case, in might be prudent to arm yourself with this knowledge to avoid potential problems in the future.
The article is written by Kathy Kristof on the Yahoo Personal Finance website. Here it is:
6 Things You Should Never Reveal on Facebook
(Note: The comment about ill-advised postings affecting your insurance might need to be taken with a grain of salt. Not sure if such activities would be “kosher” in Canada.)
This is not legal or professional advice. Your mileage may vary. Objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear. 🙂
Agree? Disagree? Say so in the comments…
Kristen, first thing: Congrats on being part of the well-informed small minority of facebook users who are smart enough to customize their facebook permissions to reduce the default “public-ish” settings. This is a very good thing. Research shows that the majority of fb users haven’t done this.
The article (I think) was casting a wide net regarding restricting such personal details in all online public arenas, including on blogs, in comments, on facebook, facebook places, twitter, linkedin, foursquare, google places, and other online hangouts.
Another thing for all of us to consider: How much do we trust the hundreds and hundreds of the people we have “friended” in facebook and other sites, when we enter this personal or travel info “only to friends”, but have 500 or 1,000 “friends” in the environment; and then when one of them comments on our upcoming travel plans (for example), now that conversation is often available to their friends as well. 🙂 And then there’s tagging which pokes a hole in your fb permission settings, and other activities (sharing, cross-posting, emailing by your friends) which can open up additional holes to data that is supposed to only be available to a person’s friends.
And once you get it figured out and set to suit you, facebook will come out with their next set of (lack-of) privacy changes to further erode personal permissions to placate their advertisers and app partners.
And remember that on many online environments, such as linkedin, twitter, most blogs, etc., everything is public by design.
When I read that article, I thought that perhaps it was just a good idea to be reminded of these safer practises and to “self filter out certain info” as more of our activities are finding their way online at an accelerating pace, don’t you think? Others may see it differently. Enter your thoughts in the comments…
I agree that these things should not be available to everyone who searches your name. But are there not privacy settings that you can alter so that only your friends can see your profile on facebook?? I have everything set so that only my friends can view my profile, my pictures, etc.
Those things may be common sense but I see people doing some of those things all the time. How many times do people update their status to: “I can’t wait, three more days until our vacation to Tahiti.” I understand that in the stream of consciousness called Facebook, it makes sense that people want do this kind of update but it also makes for an easy target.