ANALYSIS – Just in case you did not have a good reason to stay away from social networking sites, this article from the NY Times should provide one for you. Or at least it will make you think twice about joining and what gets posted. The article outlines the (difficult) process that users must go through to break free from the Facebook clutches.
The ramifications of the relative permanence of the data posted may not worry the social users (although it should), but corporations should definitely take notice. Particularly as they try to incorporate the use of Facebook into their recruiting efforts. Ideally, Facebook corporate users will develop and enforce appropriate use policies and guidelines to protect themselves as well as the users. In their defense, if Facebook is going to succeed they need to have user information for their marketing partners to target, so making it a difficult process is not surprising. But users should be more aware of this dirty little secret.
Click here to view the NY Times article.