Everyone has at least one. A Facebook account. A Twitter feed. Maybe a lingering MySpace page. Probably in conjunction with these you are running a LinkedIn page for connecting to work contacts; posting location information through 4Square; or have a personalized iGoogle homepage. Let’s face it social networking has become the hottest way to keep in contact with your friends, co-workers, lost acquaintances, even family. Social networking has allowed individuals to maintain vast social networks that span across the globe. Individuals, groups, and organizations are utilizing social network sites to reach out to their communities. They have become the preferred means to spread interest in specific topics and advertise upcoming local events. Staying connected with the people that influence our lives has never been easier. But with all the advantages these sites offer, it comes with a profound price: our privacy.
We hand over most of our personal information to these sites: where we work, our telephone numbers, home addresses, email addresses, personal history, and much more. All of this information is accessible by not only the system administrators for these companies but also the people we accept as our friends; not to mention whatever information left unprotected that can be accessed by individuals or law enforcement surfing social network sites. Through our posts we provide information on our spending habits, where we are, our personal thoughts on popular culture, where we shop most, even the events of our mundane lives. We upload photos, create blogs, post comments, and comment on other people posts. Through all of this, we are creating mass information databases that can teach enterprising parties a lot about the kind of people we are. As we increasingly put more of our private lives into these vast social information databases growing concern is mounting about the amount of privacy a person has online and the possible profits that can be generated from data collected about you and your friends through social media posts.