JackCola.org

I was reading over at ISP iiNet’s Blog and came to a post titled Internet Safety – Your Digital Footprint. The post is about your digital footprint you leave behind when adding content to the web such as Status updates, or posting on forums. I wrote a comment on the blog, and I would just like to share my thoughts and comments to you on how you can protect yourself online.

The below comment by me has been copied.

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First of all, since I am on the internet and have a lot of websites (JackCola.org, StuNews.net, CreateASuccessfulBlog.com, UnknownReviewer.com, ShareMyLife.info), I communicate online with a lot of people, and I try to keep my online presence completely separate to my personal presence to help separate my digital footprint and my personal footprint.

To help with this, my Facebook profile is locked down really tight, so only friends of friends can find me through the search function, or by knowing my Facebook username. I have also hidden my friends list to remove any link and information my friends may provide about me on their publicly visible profile. For a while, I even used a custom made avatar that I used as a profile picture for years on all my services I use, before I uploaded a photo of myself for the first time.

The reasons why I do this is to protect my digital footprint. Only those who I personally know are added to my Facebook account. By locking down your profile, this prevents potential employers from finding me to know more about me and what I get up to in my personal life. Every month, I also delete all my status updates and comments I post on other people's wall so it can’t be found through friends. Basically, my profile is set to Friends Only; my profile wall is pretty much blank; and I have blocked all applications from accessing my profile information, and blocked applications my friends use that can access my information.

My tips to digital safety and protecting your digital footprint is to:

• Don't use your full last name. Modify it a bit, change a few characters around
• Every month, check your Facebook privacy settings. All new features added to Facebook are set to “Show To Everyone”. Did you know applications your friends use can access your personal information without you knowing?
• Keep your online and personal life separate - just like you should keep your personal life and work life separate.
• Create an alias for yourself when posting on blogs and online forums.
• Have a personal email address, and another email address that you use when signing up to websites you don't particularly trust with your information. Things like Banking, Facebook, PayPal use your personal email address, other sites like online forums, use your other email address.
• Don't use the same password for all your online accounts. If a site you have registered with gets hacked, they can use your email and password to access your emails and get access to everything you own.
• Do not add everyone to your Facebook account – You will be amazed how many people do not know everyone they are friends with
• Do a search on yourself and see what information comes up about you
• Be careful what you post about yourself online – you just don’t know who is going to read it
• Be careful what you post on other people’s wall on their Facebook profile – if theirs is set to public, everyone will be able to read your comment you posted
• Create a public profile about yourself and keep it separate to your other online activities. Only give out the profile to those you meet in person or for job interviews
• Any personal identifiable information you publish online, make sure it’s protected
• Delete any personal identifiable information you have published online, or even setup a new Facebook account like I have done
• Do not publish personal identifiable information online in that’s accessible to anyone

I hope some of these tips are helpful to you in protecting your online presence.

Update: I have written another post on how you can protect yourself online when using Facebook, Gmail, and other websites which I urge you all to continue reading. For more tips on protecting yourself while online, check out my FAQ on how to protect yourself online.

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Comments (16)

• |2011-03-15 11:58:16 Rock23  - My name pops up in google searches
  Hello mate,
  i had recently made some comments on wall posts of various facebook pages.. But now when i made a google search in my name, searches were returned which could take anyone straight to those pages where i had posted those comments.. I have in fb set 'search for me' to 'friends of friends' .. but still people can find my profile by clicking on my profile name on those comments of mine.. This is absolutely ridiculous.. Google also has all those pages cached where i posted comments, so now i have to delete all those comments of mine on various pages and then use google's webmaster tool to get google recrawl through those pages so that my name is no longer related to those posts and so it won't pop up in searches..
  But some of comments made by others still have my name in the form of '@myname' .. I asked the page admins to delete such comments but they seem to be deaf..
  
  
  Tell me what should i do now.. I always kept all my privacy settings quite tight but still my profile can be found in this manner.. Google also tells me that some facebook page owners let their pages be crawled or monitored by google.. So anyone who posts a comment on any of their updates(posts) of such pages, link to that webpage which has his comment will be shown in google search results..
  
  Isn't this a violation of privacy which fb says it maintains a strict policy on it????? My family can find my facebook profile owing to those comments i posted , even when i have my public search settings narrowed down to the least.. help help help
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• |2011-03-22 11:15:15 Jack Cola
  Hi Rock23,
  
  I know how you feel, but unfortunately that's the way Facebook has always worked.
  
  The privacy settings effect your personal profile online, so anything you write outside of that will be determined by their Facebook privacy settings.
  
  It is also the same when you comment on other people's Facebook Updates.
  
  For example, if you post a comment on User A's status update, and there profile is public, everyone who visits User A's profile will be able to read your comment.
  
  If you post a comment on User B Update, and they have everything to private, then only those who have permission to access User B profile will be able to see your comment.
  
  So this is the same for pages, but most pages are public.
  
  However, Tagged photo's are a little difference. I am not 100% sure here. But I think for example, if your tag photo's are set to me only, only other people in that photo will be able to see it and the uploaded themselves (or maybe even their friends). I have my Tagged photo's set to me only, and I wanted to show a friend a particular photo, but they couldn't see it.
  
  So my suggestion to you, is only post comments outside your personal profile on pages or friends accounts that you know - otherwise it's open to everyone.
  
  Another thing you can do is create your own personal FB Page of yourself that will be used as your public identity.
  
  I suggest you read this to articles I wrote about Facebook Privacy and using a Public Page for yourself.
  
  http://www.jackcola.org/blog/149-should-you-let...
  
  http://www.jackcola.org/blog/134-why-i-will-dit...
  
  I hope this comment helps.
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• |2011-10-28 06:15:32 Debbie E. Smith  - Privacy
  I wanted to separate business from my personal life too. Your advice about locking social media sites is really nice. I am not totally aware of the locking features on Facebook. Upon reading your post I began to realize what you did with your facebook account is correct. I will also lock my FB account tightly. Thanks for sharing helpful information!
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• |2011-10-29 12:25:21 Jack Cola
  I'm glade you found this post useful Debbie!
  If there is anything else I can help you with, please let me know.
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• |2012-01-01 16:48:30 Sujoy Dhar  - Facebook keeping privacy strongly !
  Now a days whenevr I try to login from other pace facebook block me and sir will you tell me how to protect my Mobile no. private as my mobile no. have been spreaded in google
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• |2012-01-06 20:10:35 Jack Cola
  If Facebook is blocking you, I'd suggest you check your account settings page.
  
  If your mobile and phone numbers are in Google Search, and you want it removed, please read this FAQ http://www.jackcola.org/faq?catid=2&faqid=22
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• |2012-01-17 04:11:29 Belinda
  I'm glad I came upon this post.This is helpful for someone like me who's pretty much signed up to every social networking sites there is and who's active in online forum too.I'll make a mental note of checking my private settings every now and then.Thanks for the heads up.
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• |2012-01-26 12:55:30 Jack Cola
  Glade to help Belinda.
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• |2012-02-10 22:13:56 balram singh  - Online Tips
  Very nice posting i like it...
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• |2012-02-16 09:45:47 steve  - concerned
  I was just recently looked up on Google search,how do I keep my person information kept hidden from prying eyes? I know there are different search engines,but how do I keep this safe altogether?
  This person seen everything that was on this list,and I was furious when they told me.
  Thank you for any information you can give me.
  S~
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• |2012-02-16 11:03:31 Jack Cola
  Hi Steve,
  
  I wrote this FAQ http://www.jackcola.org/faq?catid=2&faqid=22 How to remove personal and unwanted information from Google Search - you might be interested in reading.
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• |2012-02-20 17:08:00 Fernando
  Thanks for the insight and information. I just checked my fb privacy settings and found that "Instant personalisation" tick box is grey out. Unable to do anything. Is there something to this ? I am using Chrome.
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• |2012-02-22 11:46:00 Jack Cola
  I believe Instant Personalisation is only available in selected countries - if it's greyed out, it's likely your not in a country that supports it yet.
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• |2012-02-27 05:13:27 network security scanners  - interesting point of view
  i have bookmarked your blog ! keep up the good work
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• |2012-04-06 07:27:05 Hipster  - Removing my name from google site linking me to ar
  ) I would like to remove my name from a particular site...How can I do this...or at least protect myself from it being seen. at the moment..I am typing in my name in google and it is there for all to see...I did not know that this would be the case. I did the article in 2009. Help?
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• |2012-04-10 21:32:02 Jack Cola
  Your best bet is to contact the website owner and request them to remove the page.
  
  Alternatively, read how to remove unwanted search results from Google here http://www.jackcola.org/faq?catid=2&faqid=22.
  
  I also encourage you to read these posts on how to protect yourself online http://www.jackcola.org/faq?catid=2&faqid=37
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