Privacy on the internet? I should think not.

I think the issue of privacy and social networking sites is interesting simply because people are so contradictory about it. Generally, social networking sites have decent privacy controls. If you don't want everyone seeing your profile on Facebook or Myspace, you can limit it. You can even get pretty specific about the information you limit so I see very little problem with the actual privacy features.

However, the fun part begins when people expect things they make public to be private. Example, Facebook introduced the new "mini-feed" feature which essentially updates you when your friends change anything. For some reason, people were outraged because they thought it would give people the ability to "stalk." I found this puzzling because if you don't want people to "stalk" you (and the term "stalk" is used veeeery loosely), you probably shouldn't have a Facebook to begin with. If the idea of strangers reading your profile or friends knowing updates is troublesome, then you have the option to make your profile private or better yet, not volunteer information about yourself publically. Interestingly enough, most people forgot about the stalking scare and kept their Facebook.

Then there are people, for example, who post really unflattering pictures (naked, intoxicated, whatever) on some corner of the internet. These people generally get mad when their parents/boss/students/teacher finds these because they expected them to be "private" while posting it in a public space. If you value your privacy, you have to think about what you reveal.

Also, I think it's kind of funny that as Americans, we seem to value privacy. We would never allow the government to keep a database with everyone's name, picture, work history, classes, phone number because it would be violating...but yet we seem to "database" ourselves willingly. I think in a sick way, sometimes people enjoy turning the private into the public.