PRINTGoogle. Saves. Every. Word.
Even a low profile won't guarantee anonymity on the Web
ILLUSTRATION BY VICTORIA MILLNER
June 28, 2007 | 12:00 a.m. CST
Jake Griesenauer, 22, is one of the few people who claims to know all 266 of his Facebook “friends.” There have been times, though, that he’s added other users before actually knowing them. He says people have requested his friendship just because he belongs to a group for Cardinals fans. “Every single person on Facebook has requested someone to be their friend when they didn’t really know them yet,” Griesenauer says. If these “friends” have access to his date of birth, work information and summer plans, Griesenauer and millions like him have no real expectation of privacy on the Internet.
Google this
Those looking for answers on search engines have good reason to be concerned about their privacy. “Googling” has opened oodles of information to users, but their searches and personal information are retained. As most curiosities end in a Google search, it is alarming to think that someone is saving the exact words entered. Ever wondered how much land self-made billionaire Stan Kroenke owns? A two-second search reveals that he owns one million acres across the U.S. and Canada.
Fortunately, Internet users have the Article 29 Data Protection Working Party on their side as they fight for privacy rights. The Working Party, located in Brussels, is designed to ensure the protection of the individual’s privacy by guaranteeing that search information and personal data is not stored by search engines forever. So, that Kroenke search along with many others will eventually disappear.
Even the master of all search engines, Google, which used to retain personal user data for an unknown amount of time, shortened its retention period to only 18 months.
Peter Fleischer, Google’s Global Privacy Counsel, posted in a blog on June 11 that Google could still serve its consumers with the shorter data storage period. Google says it needs users’ search information to improve and advance the engine. Many users might feel that some of those advances come at the cost of unwanted intrusion.
Security checklist
Despite this, Google does provide a privacy option. “We’ve engineered our services to allow users to see and control how much data they wish to share with us,” Fleischer says.
Even though some search engines have restricted the time for data availability, resident Brandon Dickherber doesn’t agree with the search engine retention policy. “Any information they don’t need directly for something that I’m doing with them and that has my verification, then they don’t need it,” he says.
Others share his hopes. Derek Jenkins, an avid Cherry Street Artisan patron, says the thought of search engines saving his data alarms him, even if it is only for an 18-month period. “I like the idea of being able to search freely without being tracked all the time,” he says.
Other users view the amount of privacy they have on the Internet as a matter of give and take. “I guess if I’m using their service, they have the right to log what I use on their service,” says Mark Schmidt.
But really, how much privacy can one expect when people openly display personal information on social networks and accept random people as “friends?” No matter if its Facebook or MySpace, the information is out there.
These social networks, and others like them, are in the public domain. But someone with a profile can increase his or her confidentiality by using a privacy option. By limiting their profiles, a preference that both Facebook and MySpace offer, people can enjoy the perks of a social network and still ward off any unwanted viewers — for the most part.
Stay away, perverts
Thinking of the hundreds of eyes monitoring personal profile pages might be a bit creepy, but even scarier is the idea of sexual predators lurking online. Seven thousand names of members who are likely registered sex offenders on MySpace were recently turned over to law enforcement nationwide.
Attorney General Jay Nixon received 178 MySpace profile names that are registered sex offenders in Missouri. However, Detective Andy Anderson, coordinator of Mid-Missouri Internet Crimes Task Force, says that as far as he knows, none of the offenders on the list are in Columbia. Although he doesn’t think there are registered sex offenders perusing MySpace locally, he suggests that parents should be aware of how their children are using the sites. “Parents need to know who is coming to visit their children, whether it’s through the front door or the Internet,” Anderson says.
Privacy on the Internet is typically a responsibility left to the user. Gwen Struchtemeyer, media co-director at Rock Bridge High School, warns her students to keep some information off the Web. “It is dangerous when children post personal information about themselves,” Struchtemeyer says. “We encourage them to use common sense.”
Parent Donna McMurry says she checks and regulates her children’s social network profiles at random. “I don’t let them put their full name, address, phone number and things like that on their profiles,” she says. McMurry even knows what her kids’ Web browsing tendencies include. She purchased a program from AOL that e-mails her with a list sites her children view.
Anderson believes that local authorities do not violate Internet users’ privacy. “The government, without court order, doesn’t have the authority to monitor Internet activity of specific individuals,” he says. The Internet crimes unit does use the Web for suspect investigation, though. To answer the Internet privacy question with a question might seem redundant, but do you know all of your “friends?”
