I don’t think that there is any privacy on the Internet. The Internet is too big of a community that is not sufficiently policed. Anyone can get online and access all sorts of information that I would normally have considered private. For instance, I googled an old acquaintance and found a newsletter from her company that bid her farewell and good wishes on her new endeavor. Should that have been online? I don’t think so. It was a private matter for that company only, not a public document of any sort.
The other thing that disturbs me somewhat is Facebook. This is a specifically designed website that allows you to post up personal information and find old long lost friends. It really is an interesting service. I decided to join and participate in this online community. I got freaked out though when people started posting all sorts of pictures of me in the line of “friendship.” I did not want these photos being posted up but I couldn’t do anything about it.
I deleted my account sometime ago but when I did so a message came up that I could reactivate it anytime I desired. I tried just that today and was a little taken aback to find that all of my personal information was still on the site. Deactivating my account did not delete anything whatsoever. I decided to manually delete everything in my Facebook account and then deactivated it again.
I hope that does the trick. The truth is that I don’t feel safe having personal information out there in cyberspace. And now that it is out there, I don’t think it can ever be truly erased. I think we need to be careful of what be post up online.
Sometimes I think this blog might even be too personal and give people some ammo to use against me. Perhaps I am just being paranoid. I don’t know. All I know is that we need to use caution online. I will be a lot more careful in the future of what I do online.
3 responses to “Internet Privacy”
You’re absolutely right, especially about Facebook. It’s a stalker’s haven. When you can’t control what information others are putting up about you, it’s dangerous.
For example, I made a lunch date with my ex sister-in-law the other day. She put up on my Facebook wall what time and where. Had someone been stalking me, they could have found me very easily.
While I think the networking purposes of Facebook are neat, I don’t like the invasion of privacy. Some people are open and inviting to this; I, however, am not. I purposely didn’t use my maiden name so that I wasn’t searchable by people who I haven’t seen in years. I also keep tight control over what I allow others to post, and what little personal info I’ve put on the site. Even so, sometimes I get a little worried about what’s out there.
People have to be a little bit trusting, but unfortunately, with the entire world having access to the internet, those select few one can’t trust can gain information on whatever they want. Sad, really, but it’s reality.
My grandfather would have been quite surprised to know that, as techo-clueless as I am, I was still able to pull up his school graduation information and his home address in all of five minutes on the computer one day.
And trust me, the gentleman has never typed a word on a computer in his entire life.
Now that is scary!
I thought we needed to be careful online but if the information is already there somehow, that is just scary.