Did you know that I was a Reform Jew?
Well, you can forget it as quick as you learned it. I am a Methodist, but Reform Jew is what my Facebook Profile says.
I don’t want people who I don’t know anything about to have access to my actual data. Besides Reform Judaism sounds kind of neat.
(I considered Islam, but I didn’t want to wait an extra couple of hours to board a plane.)
Loren Steffy writes about internet privacy and specifically about Facebook privacy in a recent column.
From the Column –
We’ve allowed self-indulgence and technology to override common sense when it comes to what we share with the world.
A birth date and a name can yield a driver’s license number and address in about 30 seconds. From there, it’s relatively easy to get a Social Security number, a list of legal judgments or convictions, information on gun permits, pilot licenses and voter registration, among other things.
You can, of course, just put the month and a day of your birth, but profile photos and school information can make it possible to guess the year.
Either way, it may be enough information to, say, fill out a credit card application in your name. For minors, this is particularly dangerous because identity theft can go undetected until they’re old enough to establish credit, and by then their credit is already ruined.
Facebook, of course, isn’t the culprit. It simply provides the platform from which we feel a need to talk about ourselves. Much of the same information can be found elsewhere with a little effort, of course. Facebook merely wraps it in a tidy package for lazy online scofflaws.
Facebook has added privacy controls, but the typical user doesn’t really know who all their friends are, or how much they value the friendship. Would all your “friends” turn down, say, $50, to let a someone have a look at your profile?
Pilant's Business Ethics Blog 
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