You Are A Online Publisher, So What?

This morning on the Today Show, Karl and I discussed ‘Your Privacy Online’ and in particular how you can manage your personal information when you use popular social sites.

It seems to be happening at exactly the same rate. As we become more comfortable with the internet, we also become more comfortable with posting more of our personal details online. Facebook, MySpace and sites that let you keep your own blog like Blogger have copious amounts of information from individuals happy to share. We’re recording our daily lives by writing blogs, posting photo’s and video’s, all of this allowing people who we have never met to learn more about us than we would most likely tell if we met them in some other environment.

Nothing new with all of this. But what happens when you decide MySpace is too 2006 for me, I want to go to Facebook? Or if you decide you don’t want to keep in touch with your mates from your last Contiki Tour and stop using Facebook. Have you tried to remove your details and what would you think if your details were still kept on file and shared around to advertisers for future marketing campaigns?

While you’re digesting, have a look at this website called The Web Archive. It’s a website that archives the internet. Type in some of your favourite websites and see how they looked many years ago. Search around for websites that you once created. Are your comments listed? Is the website listed?

When we become an internet publisher we must maintain in the back of our minds that the details we place online now, will be out there forever.