Social Networking Applications are Risky
Even if your Myspace page or Facebook page is private, you should worry about the risks of the social network. On Facebook, applications have a box that is necessary in order to gain access to the application saying “know who I am and access my information.” This includes everything except contact information. Meaning your pictures, location, job, income, description of yourself and likes and dislikes are available. the 70 million users of facebook also provide their full name, which the 17 million users on Myspace do not have to include. The third party can target ads relating to your gender and age. If your listed as married, you will get ads involving marriages and pregnancies. It’s pretty creepy. Facebook and Myspace are great means of communication and lots of fun but people need to be more aware of the applications they use as well as the personal information listed on their pages, whether your view is private or not!
I agree with you completely. Even though I am guilty of being on Facebook all the time, my full name is write on top of my page! It’s very unsafe. I avoided putting my hometown, job, income, or where I go to school up tough, that would be too much information!
I find it extremely alarming that just about anyone can find out a lot about you through myspace and facebook. I know that i set my profile to very strict privacy settings but i still know that people can find ways to view my profile. I think its one thing to have college students on it but now their are kids of middle school age on facebook. I find this extremely unsafe, these kids are too young to understand that not everyone online is a nice person. These websites should either make their websites more secure, which might be impossible, or kids parents should more closely watch what their children do online.
I think everyone has a facebook or myspace, it’s just a new technology of representing who you are. Of course there are going to be scams out there trying to get your information and use it against you. People need to be careful with these things, I’m sure we all do. I wish facebook and myspace could figure out a way to make themselves a little safer, because they were design for what we use them for and we shouldn’t feel scared.