Social networking sites such as MySpace
and Facebook
have become increasingly popular. They are a good way to catch up on new friends and for local bands and sometimes national ones to provide news to their fans in a convenient and usually free place to do so. Social networking is not without its dark side or its dangers which users of the sites should be aware of. While the dangers of identity theft are often guarded against, marketers have been sneakily collecting information from such pages.
It is not exactly the same as spyware as this is software that has been stealth installed onto a user's computer to collect marketing data and which can sometimes result in undesirable operation. No, the problem of social is that users often post things such as favorite movies, shows, or other things that might make them the target of unwanted marketing attempts. As there is no expectation of privacy on the Internet, posting personal information to social networking sites like Facebook or Myspace such as your social security number or data of birth may be useful tools to identity thieves and may be avoided, but other information, called digital media to some is a bonanza for marketers and advertising looking for people who may be their target audience.
It seems that the rule long applied to the Internet elsewhere will soon apply to social networking sites like Facebook and Myspace as well. If you are not comfortable sharing this information, you probably do not want to put it out there on the Internet where it can easily be found by typing it into a search engine, which will be made even easier by several of the more popular sites making their data discoverable by search engines.
While the data found and provided by social bookmarking sites can give criminals as well as marketers a wealth of information that makes both of their jobs easier, privacy groups have voiced their concerns and have pushed the industry to find ways to improve the security of social networking sites. Social networking site dangers can often be avoided by not putting out certain types of information such as job, marital status or sexual orientation. Not only that it will cut down on the unwanted junk mail and e-mails your receive. Then again, you can always use the same option I do and not use the sites. They seemed pointless to me to begin with.
