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The Dirt On MySpace's & Facebook's Safety, Security & Privacy

Most people don't want their personal information--name, e-mail address, accomplishments--available for anyone to see at any time. One of the challenges of social networking sites will be to give users control over what gets shared, when, and with whom by providing users a cloak of anonymity.

Also, there is the wider privacy threat in relation to placing too much personal information in the hands of large corporations or governmental bodies, allowing a profile to be produced on an individuals behavior on which decisions, detrimental to an individual, may be taken. In addition there is an issue over the control of data - information having been altered or removed by the user may in fact be retained and/or passed to 3rd parties.

Severely Career-Limiting
Everyone loves to share photos and video, and the Internet is increasingly the medium of choice. Users can post their names, educational and job backgrounds, and areas of expertise onto their favorite social networking site.

Research and experience proves, however, that it can be a severely career-limiting activity. A good case-in-point is Delta Airlines flight attendant Ellen Simonetti, who got fired for posting pictures online of herself posing fairly provocatively in her uniform.

Seventy seven percent of recruiters use search engines to perform background checks on job candidates according to ExecuNet. Ten percent of hiring managers size up recruits via social networking sites, with a whopping 63% dropping a candidate because they did not like what they saw, according to CareerBuilder.

Use of Social Network Websites in Investigations
On larger social networking services, there has been growing concerns about users giving out too much personal information and the threat of sexual predators. Be aware of data theft, viruses, etc. However, large services, such as MySpace, often work with law enforcement to prevent such incidents.

Social network services are increasingly being used in legal and criminal investigations. Police and university officials to prosecute users of said sites have used information posted on sites such as MySpace and Facebook. In some situations, content posted on MySpace has been used in court to determine an appropriate sentence based on a defendant's attitude.

Facebook, an online social network service, is increasingly being used by school administrations and law enforcement agencies as a source of evidence against student users. The site, the number one online destination for college students, allows users to create profile pages with personal details. These pages can be viewed by other registered users from the same school which often include resident assistants and campus police who have signed-up for the service.

Social networking industry spokespeople have made it clear that most social networking sites' public forums and all information published on the site should be presumed available to the general public. Legal experts agree that public information sources such as Facebook can be legally used in criminal or other investigations.

It has become increasingly common for colleges and universities to use Facebook to investigate underage drinking and violations of dry campus policies. Students who violate these policies may be discovered through photographs of illicit drinking behavior, membership in drinking-related groups, or party information posted on the Facebook website.

Online, of course, what people say is there for all to see. So, Hollywood producers could track what's going on in social networks to find out what people think of their latest film. This could guide them to produce the next blockbuster. Equally it could guide them towards legal action against the negative comments.

Other businesses could do the same. Social networks provide a huge opportunity for market research. They also open up the floodgates for lawyers to take actions which previously they could not have done as the damaging comments said in offline public settings are not easily identifiable.

Business analysts in Australia expect automatic tracking software to be available in the next couple of years. Internet marketers use social networks to find out what the latest trends are, what people are discussing and use that information to help them decide what products and services they can roll out to you in the future.

Staying Out Of Trouble
The answer to sharing pictures and videos and staying out of hot water is a new private file-sharing service, which avoids uploading files to a public Internet site for all to see.

This feature is a private & secure sharing service that lets you create a rich multimedia gallery (of videos, audios, images and other files) and choose exactly who may view each gallery. It lets you share any file, any size (video, audio, photo, other) to anyone through email and an online file repository. Simply, it allows users to send an email to their chosen friends inbox. The recipient of the email is immediately able to watch or listen to the multimedia file(s).

You are what you post on the Web. While it is fun to share photos of your antics, it can also get you into a lot of trouble. A good rule of thumb is, if you would not want your mom or employer to see it, do not post it on any social networking site.

Online Space Solution
True walled gardens allow users to have total control over the distribution of their expressions, context, and content. Robots cannot run around grabbing the content of users' private walled gardens.

This new paradigm of exclusivity will value quality over quantity of connections. This will make your social networks more like offline social circles, that is, to be exclusive. There may be fewer people in your network; however members of your exclusive network offer a well-defined, unified and loyal group.

By adopting this, avid users of social networks would be able to join any number of social networks, and start adding their friends to their own private, safe & secure network aggregation solution. They'd get a user experience that is a lot more satisfying.

With it, you can feel comfortable sharing whatever you'd like because it allows you to stay in control of what gets shared, when, and with whom. Also, it helps individuals to aggregate the relationship capital built from any social networking site such as MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, LinkedIn, Bebo plus all others including Mobile Social Networking sites. This software enables you to manage, deliver and track social networking activities for fast & easy sharing of video, audio, photos, files, and more.

Article Source: http://impactdns.com

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