What is a social networking website?

On a social networking site you can post descriptions and pictures of your self, find and keep in touch with friends, and establish contact with people that share your interests.

You establish a profile by registering personal information, such as e-mail address, and usually optional information about interests, personal relations, work, friends etc. It is also possible to post pictures, videos, music and create a link to a personal blog. The main purpose of the mandatory information is to ensure that one person doesn’t register many profiles.

On most social networking sites you can search for old and new friends, and share information with other people in the community according to the choices you made for your profile (all, just friends etc.). Many communities are financed through ads, and those ads may target certain users according to how well they fit a profile.

Is there a risk?

When you share personal information, there is always a risk that the information may get lost. It has also been observed that it is easier to spread “spam” and viruses and to make successful attempts to gather personal data on social networking sites than elsewhere on the Internet.

How can your profile be mapped?

It’s easy to download and store user profiles. Even if the information in a profile – or the entire profile – is deleted, you can’t be sure that the information is taken off the Internet entirely. If information from different networking sites is combined, and even coupled with information from public sources, it could provide a pretty detailed picture of an individual. Government agencies in many countries use such tools in their effort to identify potential terrorists.

How to mitigate the risk?

Check the end user licence agreement: How does the website handle personal information and with whom do they share it?
Check if it is possible to delete a profile at a later stage, if the need should arise.
Check what information it is mandatory. It’s better to start with a fairly private profile and open it more up later, than the other way round.
Don’t allow others access to private contact lists for e-mail. Never share the password to an e-mail account with others.
Don’t use the same password on a social networking site as in more important systems like an online bank account.
A smart trick is to keep one or more extra e-mail addresses for insecure communication (registering for competitions etc.). This can help mitigate the amount of spam in the primary inbox.

Who owns the information?

As a rule, the material published on a website is protected by property rights, and is owned by the person who posts it. However; how this is handled may vary from website to website and it is therefore important to check the end user licence agreement before registering and publishing material.

What can be done if a person is abused on a social networking website?

Most social networking sites have an abuse department. If they fail to deal with the problem satisfactory, you can contact the Data protection authorities or the Police (depending on the nature of the problem).