If you run a business, you’re cautioned constantly about the dangers of being “invisible” on the Internet, or of failing to leverage your website to achieve maximum search engine optimization. What you want for your business is a high profile. However, when it comes to social media, the exact opposite might be your goal.
Privacy, or the lack of it, has been a mounting issue for the past couple of years. Companies that collect and share personal data involving religion, finances, spending habits, medical history and other such information to third parties without the consent of customers have been the target of industry and government efforts to protect individual privacy. Recent news reports suggest that the commercial data-collection industry and their allies continue to find ways to track and gather personally identifiable information. The dozens of popular cell phone apps that were recently discovered to be transmitting data to third parties without users’ permission caused a storm of justified protest.
What can you do? It helps to start with the premise that nothing you do online is anonymous. Many people are too busy or too daunted by the long privacy policy messages they are asked to review to properly read them.
Here are a few steps to consider:
Of course, there is no turning back the clock. We live in a digital age and there is no perfect solution to the privacy issue. Perhaps all you can do is change your mindset and assume that nothing you post online or via email is private. Think twice before sharing personal information, and never post financial information – even on a secure site – unless you know that you are transmitting from a secure zone.