Only the elderly worry about privacy, right?

Only the elderly worry about privacy, right? Um, not exactly. While some of us may take for granted that Facebook is God's way of making us a friendlier race, a surprisingly large number of folk still refuse to move their mouse anywhere near the social networking behemoth.

Among their reasons -- and there are many -- is that little issue about privacy. The fear isn't exactly unfounded either. A recent news report cited how Facebook's privacy policy grew from around 1,000 words five years ago to approximately 6,000 at the last count. Add that to the many other reports clubbing 'social networking' with 'invasion of privacy' and you can tell there's a fair amount of smoke behind this particular e-fire.

Another big problem is the permanence of the Internet, where nothing really dies. Thanks to the nature of the medium, things I gushed about in 1996 (a little after I turned 20) continue to turn up in search engines as if to mock me. What one tends to lose, then, is the ability to brush one's past under a carpet. And don't get me started on how my 'likes' and 'dislikes' will ultimately determine what messages are sent to me by marketing departments via SMS. Some HR professionals I know even insist on checking a candidate's Facebook or Orkut profile before typing up an offer letter. No past under the carpet, see?

Other reasons often given include possible identity theft, searchable status updates (try youropenbook.org for proof), and the ease with which the non net-savvy can be conned into giving out the kind of data they would never reveal to a stranger in the real world.

The thing to do, of course, is use networking sites like Facebook for the good things they offer -- maintaining contacts, locating common interests and, er, a bit of networking -- while adjusting your privacy settings on a weekly basis. All said and done, most social networking sites own the rights to your data. As businesses, they can't be blamed for selling access to it. Chew on that.

-- Lindsay Pereira is Editor, MiD DAY Online (twitter.com/lindsaypereira)