The increasing use of social networking services poses a difficult problem to users – how much information should you share? Do you talk about work, family, personal problems? Do you use names or pseudonyms? Do you make everything private or share your warts and all with anyone willing to pay attention?
This has been a problem for as long as people have communicated with each other but now that everything is archived online and potentially forever it becomes an acute issue. Do you think it isn’t a problem?
Here is an interesting case that points out a problem. Someone has created a new website that takes public information from a popular web application, foursquare. Foursquare encourages people to check in when they go out and about and let’s them know when friends are in the vicinity. A cool concept perhaps, but take this into consideration:
Built using the public interface to foursquare and Twitter, it shows when someone has checked in somewhere other than home, presumably leaving that person’s home unoccupied. I don’t know whether the site is a social networking commentary or a joke but the idea is clear – when you share information that is identifiable back to you, you are putting yourself at some level of risk.
This isn’t new. Every time you sign up for a grocery reward program, enter a contest, hand someone a business card, you provide that person or organization with the means to do something you don’t want them to with that information. You can reduce that risk by being cautious but you can’t eliminate it.
How do you (if you do) protect your information online?