Online Privacy: What Your Social Footprint Leaves Behind
August 10th, 2010
The debate on privacy in the social space took another huge leap this past week. The Wall Street Journal’s ran an in-depth, investigative series titled, “What They Know.” The eye-pooping, jaw-dropping insights in the series (here, here and it continues here) left little doubt that your digital footprint is easier to track and identify than you might realize. But The Wall Street Journal has a big staff, time to investigate, and an editorial directive to find the story.
What could a person like me find out about, say, some people they met at recent networking events?
From a recent handful of business cards I gathered at a networking event, I poked around on social networking sites to see just what people reveal about them to the rest of the world – without cookies, spyware, or other data-gathering tricks. This was a simple search to see just how much I could learn about four people. What’s surprising is that I found a lot of details that I’m not certain these four folks know just how much they’ve put out there. Among the details, I learned:
- where they went to college
- where they went to high school
- how old they are
- where they live
- where they were born
- what nationality they are
- what religion they are
- everywhere they’ve ever worked
- how many kids they have (I even got to see photos and videos)
- what their spouses do for a living
- who they voted for in recent elections
- what their primary hobbies are
- what movies they had recently seen
- what bands/music they like
- what books they’ve read in recent months
- what restaurants they’ve been to in the last month
- and where they’re traveling to right now
Remember, this was just me, looking at public info they’ve posted on social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube and others.
So what are you opening revealing about yourself? Perhaps more than you know.