PR 101

I was once at a party where a couple of guys were talking about some websites they surf that feature lascivious content. I am taking their word for what was on the sites. Those sites are not anything in which I am interested. The sexiest thing I look at on the Web is the new Trek Madone bike.

At any rate, I asked these two if they weren’t worried someone would find out about their online viewing habits? One of them assured me that no one would find out because they use fake names and email addresses dedicated only to their pursuit of “pleasure.” Oh, I said, so you don’t use your home computers? Both of them looked at me and said of course they did – they would never do that kind of thing in public.

Both turned white when I told they were not hiding anything. Why? Because on the web, their computers are identified by their ISP addresses. They cannot fake those. In addition, I am willing to bet that the porn sites are dumping cookies into their computers.

“In computing, a cookie (also tracking cookie, browser cookie, and HTTP cookie) is a small piece of text stored on a user’s computer by a web browser,” according to Wikipedia. “A cookie can be used for authenticating, session tracking (state maintenance), and remembering specific information about users, such as site preferences or the contents of their electronic shopping carts.” (The emphasis is mine.)

In other words, your ISP provider knows where you are going and what you are doing, and the site you visited knows you were there. Actually, a spouse could find too, simply by checking the list of cookies stored in the computer.

What these two gentlemen discovered is there is no privacy on the web. The trade-off for using social media and other sites is that you are living in a glass house with no curtains.

I am not talking about hackers. That is entirely different issue that often involves criminal conduct. What I am talking about here is the entirely legal ways your personal information becomes public information. The problem is that once this information is collected and packaged, it doesn’t seem that difficult for hackers to steal it.

There are any number of businesses and agencies that collect and keep information that flows around the web. Retailers, credit card companies, and research firms, are some. Just to make it really fun, law enforcement monitors also the web.

“Among its many provisions, the (Patriot) Act gives law enforcement authorities additional authority to monitor individuals’ Internet activity, including e-mail and website visits,” according to a 2004 article by the Congressional Research Service. “Amendments passed the next year as part of the Homeland Security Act (P.L. 107-296) expanded the circumstances under which Internet Service Providers may voluntarily divulge the content of communications, and to whom.”

Think about all of this. When you buy a pair of shoes or anything else on line, information such the type of shoe you buy, your address, what kind of credit card you used, what other shoes you looked it, how long you stayed on the site, and where you live are all recorded.

When you join sites such as Facebook or Twitter, you provide such information as whether you are married, where you live, your income range and some of your interests. On LinkedIn and other such sites, you are telling the world where you work, where you went to college, what other jobs you had and what you are doing at work. Add to that some of the Google apps, such as IGoogle, that tells the world where you are and what you watch on YouTube.

Companies now regularly check such sites as Facebook, MySpace and Twitter before making a hiring decision. There are dozens of stories about candidates losing out on jobs because of the pictures of that beer bong or wet t-shirt contest. In my home state of Wisconsin, all criminal records are listed on a state website. If you look, you will find my two speeding tickets.

If you really want to lay awake at night, consider what two researchers recently discovered. According to Time Magazine: “by using data from voter registration lists and social-networking sites, and studying statistical patterns in the Social Security numbers (SSNs) of people who have died, researchers Alessandro Acquisti and Ralph Gross have developed an algorithm that could potentially identify the SSNs of millions of people. Acquisti and Gross warn that “unless mitigating strategies are implemented, the predictability of SSNs exposes them to risks of identity theft on mass scales.” (my emphasis.)

Just for the heck of it, I Googled myself. I found out a lot – just about everything I listed above. I found where I live, what I did, where I went to college and my original hometown. I should note that when I was a reporter, I was put through several Internet training courses. I am pretty good researcher. It wasn’t that hard for me to find just anything for which I was looking. But I am nothing special. Anyone with a logical mind and a knack for solving puzzles can find pretty much find anything on the Web.

Okay, so you are saying to yourself, well, I don’t use the web that much. I don’t purchase anything from a website. I mostly just send email. Well, let’s put aside credit cards for a minute. Like most of us, you probably have a number of discount cards in your wallet from various hotels, airlines, retailers and grocery stores. You think they give  you those cards out of some altruistic method? No, every time you make a purchase and use one of those cards, all of your purchases go into a database. Very soon, the retailer builds a pretty good profile of what you buy.

Companies who aggregate the information collect all kinds of other data from a variety of sources. You want to buy a list of blue-eye, left handed Catholics who make over $75,000 a year and play golf every Saturday? Someone can compile the information for you.

When I tell people this, they roll their eyes and stammer that somebody should do something about this. Well, what would have someone do? Do you really want a world with the Internet, if it was even possible? It’s here to stay. So unless you are planning on moving completely off the grid, we all just have to learn to be careful and just live with it.

NOTE TO MY READERS: If you are interested in a free, introductory course on social media, email me. Myself and three other social media acolytes are giving away an EBook written by social media guru Simon U. Ford. Ford sold several thousand of the books for $47. However, we have permission to give it away for a limited time. In addition, you get five free podcasts. We also will be holding a series of four virtual “book clubs” to go over the book. Between the book, the podcasts, and the four of us, you will receive a comprehensive overview of social media. Because we want to provide the best possible training, there are only be 50 spots available for the book club. For more information, go to the Social Boomers site. That’s right, we are actually marketing to Boomers – and anyone else who is interested.