The enthusiastic take up of social networking web services is showing up some serious issues of privacy and business risk. In the early days of 'chat rooms' the risks were of unwanted attention from strangers and using pseudonyms or nick names to hide identity. The style now is to reveal your identity and communicate relatively openly with your 'friends'. The problem still remains, that your friends may not be that friendly.
Employers are also using social networking sites to check up employees and applicants for jobs. There is an emerging private investigation business, that will do internet searches to gather information on people. On the other hand businesses are at risk from employees revealing commercially sensitive information, or criticising their employer publicly. The media had a few reports of recent events:
1. Digging up dirt: Facebook spies for hire - The Age 17/04/09
2. Telstra lays down the law on Twitter - The Age 20/04/09
3. Spokeo - people finder service
4. Enter 'people finder' into a search engine
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