Nothing New, but Useful for New Social Networkers

CNN.com had an article today that, while in no way dispensing any new information, is something that could be pretty useful for people who a) are brand new to social networking sites or b) have kids who are on or want to be on one.

"I don't want to have to worry about all the different online scandals and problems," says Brown, an education major at St. Joseph College in Connecticut. She'd like to control her personal information and keep it out of the hands of identity thieves or snooping future employers. "It's just common sense."

It sounds like her info is locked down and airtight. But is it?

Turns out, even the privacy-conscious Sarah Browns of the world freely hand over personal information to perfect strangers. They do so every time they download and install what's known as an "application," one of thousands of mini-programs on a growing number of social networking sites that are designed by third-party developers for anything from games and sports teams to trivia quizzes and virtual gifts.

The rest of the article is here, and if you fall into either of the categories I mentioned, you should totally check it out.

I feel the need, again, to make the point that nothing is free.  Not entirely.  If you want the neat applications and you don't want to pay for them they need to be supported by ads.  The ads are more effective and therefor more profitable if they are targeted based upon assumed interests and patterns of behavior.

So should you be careful?  Sure.  Should you whine and moan because your online activity is being tracked?  No, you should just stay away from sites and applications that do the tracking.