Watch Out for Facebook Quizzes

The first part of this article is for all Facebook users. There are a lot of cute little things that you can do on Facebook. You can take little quizzes to find out what color you are, or what dragon you are or what animal you are. There are also IQ quizzes and other quizzes that feed your ego. You need to pay attention and read the information around the quiz carefully, and under no circumstances should you ever put in a phone number.

All of these quizzes will suck up information on you because by taking the quiz you give them access and permission. The ones that ask for a phone number are by far the worse. If you enter a phone number they will charge you $9.99 for each result you get. In my own defense, I didn't do this; it was done by a family member who now knows better.

People do not create all of these applications out of the goodness of their hearts. When people are handing out free applications you can bet they're getting something out of it. Most are just hoping to draw a lot of traffic to their sites and hope people click on advertising, but there are quite a few out there that are more malicious in nature. You just have to be careful.

Everyone must keep in mind that the Internet is like the Wild West. No one has figured out how to control it and I'm not sure that they should. It is up to the users to control their own information and to protect themselves. The thing that everyone should always keep in mind is that anything you put on the Internet is fair game. It may show up any where at any time. It may be used in ways you have never imagined. I was told that a family posted a picture on the Internet and a friend told them he saw their picture in a store window in Brazil as part of a display to sell products. That was exploitation but at least it wasn't damaging to the family. The TV show "Raising the Bar" had a case where a man was charged with child endangerment because he posted a picture of son in the bathtub. The man was totally unaware that someone grabbed the picture and put it on a child porn site. This was a fictional story but this kind of thing could happen.

If you want to vent on Facebook, or MySpace, or Twitter; fire away but make sure you mean what you say because you can never take it back. If you want to flirt online and think your spouse won't find out; you are asking for big trouble. My rule is if you won't stand out on the street corner and shout it to the world then you shouldn't put it on the Internet. Every key stroke you enter is recorded and can be picked up one way or another.

Another thing people need to watch is how they handle their email. People love to forward cute pictures or little stories to other people. Many times I will receive one of these emails and the "To" line will contain the email addresses of everyone the item was sent to. People are unwittingly handing out all of their friends email addresses. Of course you assume that everyone you send the message to is honest, but how do you know who sees the email in the countless of houses and officies that cute little things get sent to? Also, when you send these things from work you are announcing to the world that you aren't always working. Companies now make it clear that they will monitor the email and use errant emails against an employee for disciplinary action or dismissal.