there is a thing called privacy settings..you can control who sees what..i make a seperate list for people i knw IRL and people i have met over the internet..and i can control what they can see in my profile. for eg: my photos,contact info,wallposts etc etc

To be fair even then you aren't safe. FB has had issues when revamping the site at setting everything to 'public' by default, and making private messages public by accident . . . also if you 'like' anything that page has access to your info like a 'friend' does, and 'liking' adverts gives advertisers access to your information too. Even if everything is 'private' it isn't as private as people assume. The safest thing to do is not put anything up that can identify you at all: no DOB, address, phone number, etc. There's no guarantee that no one else can see it.

i have a habit of checking my privacy settings every week :D lol..yes one advice i'll give to anyone is using random apps for eg: "how hot are you" ,what will be your wifes name" all that kinda stupid apps..lol, an app can access all your information so don't use that and stay away from random pages..they do the same shit..and why would people put their phone numbers? o_O and keep a separate list for people you know and you don't !

Yup! There's a reason Facebook is worth 50 billion dollars. It's a gold mine full of information.

Why send out surveys, search bots, etc. when people happily volunteer personal information, tell us where they are, what they're doing, etc.

I have to agree with SP here and Robin. Our government must know more about us than any CENSUS would ever convey.

Is that why Our govt is so keen to get everyone on LIne?


Be careful and do not identify yourselves either.

Ps someone here even told us their surname-- so easy to trace from that.

Well, I can't see the government Facebook'ing the people, but I agree they know far too much about the private lives of citizens through other methods . . . but the whole "1984" thing of CCTV, credit records, internet information etc. is probably a whole other thread, lol.

I think Facebook and social networking sites are mainly just used by businesses and the like to get information about consumers, but personally I find that more alarming than having the government knowing one's information. You're right though that even the smallest piece of information, such as a surname, can be pricless to certain corrupt individuals . . . the sad thing is that in this day and age people don't think twice. The click of a button and we can talk to someone across the world, for those who grew up in a world where they can't even remember a time without computers I think they simply assume that the web is safer than it is, and forget that information placed online often stays there for all eternity in one form or other.

I would not put anything past the government.

0%........

Why do I get the feeling you do this 24/7?

Been there, done that, had about 60.000 friends (was one of the first members), almost none even spoken an international language (like english, french, german or spanish), deleted account after getting stalked by a crazy red haired women.
Just be careful around there, don't "throw" your ID's so easily. From over 600 million people, you can end up meeting one crazy, I know I did.