Computing Your Frustration (Part 2): Privacy & Embarrassment

A computer is one of the few things that can frustrate people so much, that they want to throw it out the window. There are many things in your control that can cause frustration; but, even worse, are the things outside of your control! Based on a recent survey, here’s what people rated as one of their top frustrations and what you can do about it.

Oops – The whole world just saw the message about your digestive heath you wrote to your best friend . . . a message which you thought was private.

Facebook and similar internet sites open up countless paths for your personal information to leak out. The easiest way to prevent this from happening is to not create an account or submit personal information to the website. If you must have an account, then take the time to learn how the site works, and read their privacy policy & FAQ’s. Checking & adjusting your security settings should be the first thing on your list after creating your account.

Specific to Facebook, you will be able to modify/adjust who can and can’t see your information, posts, pictures, updates, etc. Even that may not be enough to help you protect your privacy. You may want to consider taking a training class on Facebook to fully understand the usage and the consequences and benefits of these social networking sites.

Then there are other sites such as Spokeo. Spokeo is what’s called an aggregator website. It’s sole purpose is to search throughout the web, and compile a record of all information pertaining to each person. Then they offer all of the content as a easy to find record that contains anything and everything they can find about an individual.

Such  sites usually have an “opt-out” policy where you can submit a request to be removed from their results. The links to these opt out requests are usually well hidden and hard to find on their site though. If all else fails, and you believe there is an invasion of privacy, you may want to consider talking to an attorney for guidance.