There has been a lot of debate lately on whether social networking sites protect your privacy. Most of the social networking sites require your name, email address, a user-name and password. However, there are some sites that also require, or ask, for additional information and their default settings are to allow other users, whether friends or not, to see this information. How is this protecting your privacy? There are a few companies that are changing your default privacy settings, but they are far from where they need to be.

What would happen it someone hacked into your account? Your personal information is readily available to this hacker. There are possibly personal photos of you and your family. This allows the hacker to easily see where you live, what your phone number is, and the could even check your previous posts to see what your daily routine is. Is this safe? Imagine if someone you don’t know decides to “friend” you on Facebook. This person looks harmless enough and you decide to accept the friendship. This person now knows where you live.

Make sure that you check your privacy settings on each and every social networking site. Make sure that only Friends can see your personal information and make sure to verify each person that requests you as a friend or follows you.

Now, not every story of privacy invasion in social networking is bad. There have been some lives saved due to the diligence of mindful users alerting the proper authorities in a users time of need.  Social networking is certainly apart of many lives, not just in the USA, but in the entire world. However, we need to take every precaution to make sure that our information is safe. Check your privacy settings and make sure to only allow people you know to see your information. It’s your responsibility to check yourself safe from prying eyes.