Online Privacy Tips - How to Protect Your Privacy Online - Redbook

Are You Revealing Too Much Online?

When Facebook changed its privacy policy (again!) this spring, it sparked a firestorm of outrage. Few users wanted their personal info shared with marketers and the entire Web. The site backtracked on many of the changes, but the concern remains: How much of your life should you live out loud online — and will it put you and your family at risk?

By Lindsey Palmer

Photo Credit: Photodisc/Getty Images

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On any given night, you can post your toddler's cute quip to your Facebook page, upload pics of girls' night out to your Flickr account, and vent about how your hubby throws elbows in his sleep on your blog. With all that sharing, could you attract the attention of a would-be stalker or (cue maternal nausea) a kidnapper? Most likely, no. Reputable sources report zero child abductions caused by personal information posted on social networking sites. But in this exciting age of so much information and connectivity, openness does come with some risks: The more info you put out there, the more personal fodder you give to people you don't know and might not be able to trust. Use your husband's real name in your oversharing blog and his boss could reconsider that promotion. Mention your son's passion for Tonka trucks on Facebook and you'll start seeing ads from toy companies. Use less-than-secure passwords for your online banking and other sensitive sites and a clever hacker might be able to crack them.

Here, Braden Cox, policy counsel at NetChoice, and Paul Buta, author of Privacy Panic, fill you in on the precautions all of us need to take to protect ourselves online, and extra steps to take if you're privacy obsessed.

If you're a LIVE-LIFE-OUT-LOUD GIRL (i.e., you offer a play-by-play of your life to your 1,000 Facebook friends, blog readers, and Twitter followers), these are the guidelines you — and everyone — should follow:

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http://www.redbookmag.com/kids-family/advice/online-privacy-tips

Only one thing I thought was really stupid to put in there... "With all that sharing, could you attract the attention of a would-be stalker or (cue maternal nausea) a kidnapper? Most likely, no. Reputable sources report zero child abductions caused by personal information posted on social networking sites." How could they ever know this? Only the sick Criminals know how and shy they chose someone to attack. And only an fool would trust what they tell them. Even if they did tell then anything at all...

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