Virtually Here

In a previous post I brought up the issue of cyber stalkers that may be out to get more information about you and your ‘real life’ through your online persona(s). This post turns that spotlight onto the corporate world and their want/need to know more about what you have been up to on your Social Networks as it may be a significant factor in for instance a hiring decision. Sites like Spokeo.com targets the corporate HR departments and allows them to with a few simple key strokes identify photos, videos, blog posts and social networks associated with your email account. Thought you were ’safe’ because you used a different user-name? In case you used your same email account you may end up exposing parts of your private life that you, well, would had preferred to keep ‘private’.

The site claims that it scans about forty social networks when it gathers the information about you. In less than a minute it return it’s findings in a easy to read and print format. Thought no one would find that drunken video of you that you posted five years ago or that post you did on MySpace one night when you were sooo mad. Think again.

Social Networks is a wonderful asset to the online communities but they do come with a price tag - and requires you to think twice before what you post. Maybe the old ‘count to ten before you say it’ - now should read ‘count to ten before you post it’.

Even though you won’t be able to see the details of what Spokeo’s search engine returns you can still type in your email account and see how many hits it finds and how many photos and videos may be associated with your email account.

Note: Spokeo, quite correctly, makes the statement that any information that they do gather is information that is public and visible to anyone that would had gone to the individual sites - they just simply the search for the busy HR department.

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