Pew Internet Report -- Digital Footprints

Article here.

First of all, it absolutely blows my mind that only 47% of people have ever searched for information about themselves online. I google myself all the time (probably an embarrassing amount) but maybe I'm just really nosy. I also pride myself on my stalking abilities, which admittedly sounds pretty creepy, but there's no way I'm the only one out there. Consider that I'm not trying to steal your identity or drive by your house at 2am...but others could be.

A coworker was talking to me today about a google search she did on her name and she was surprised at the amount she found about herself. It makes me think of the steps people advise you to take if there is embarrassing information about you on the web or if someone with your name is involved in questionable activity. It's funny that the answer is to basically take back control of your name by creating your "official" outlets on the web -- a website with your name as the domain name, social networking profiles with your name and appropriate information. So you address your digital footprint problems by stamping your official digital footprint that you can control. Probably good advice but not the easiest for non-web-savvy people.

I'm most concerned about this finding in the study:

(For teens) just 40% said their profile was visible to anyone, while 59% reported access that was restricted to friends only.

The information of four in ten teenagers is available to the public.

It makes me think about my AOL days and how gullible I used to be. I never gave out personal information or agreed to meet up with anyone, but back then, I really believed that I was talking to a 14-year-old boy in metro Detroit who also really loved the Tigers. And maybe I was, but there was a good chance that I wasn't.

And the stakes are so much higher n0w considering how sites like Facebook display all of your contact information and encourage you to share pretty personal details. I'm not blaming Facebook or any other social networking sites. It's just frightening that if adults -- likely the parents of these teenagers -- don't know enough to keep an eye on their digital footprints, who will keep an eye out for these kids?