➟ Someone who wants to embarrass or bully you.
➟ Plagiarists who want to claim your content as
their own.➟ Criminal organizations or individuals building profiles
of people to scam, steal identities from, hijack comput-
ers, find interesting homes to break into or cars to
steal, target people to physically harm, and so on.➟ Companies who want to use your information in
ways that act against your interests. Consider these
examples:- Insurance companies may use information posted
on blogs to deny coverage of medical claims, car
accident claims, and so on. - A potential employer may reject your job applica-
tion based on information about you online. Or
your current employer may find reasons to fire you.
Set Boundaries for Information Exposure
Where you set your own boundaries for information exposure is an
entirely personal choice, but here’s a quick overview of what you should
consider in making your choices. If a site requires personal information,
you should recognize the differences in these types of data:➟ Information that an organization has to collect
before you can use its Web site: Many services have
to collect some information from you in order for
them to interact with you. Online shopping Web sites,
for instance, need to have your name and address,
among other data, for financial transactions. (See
Figure 2-3.) They need to know certain things about
your computer, such as your IP address(this stands for
Internet protocol, which is a unique identifier assigned27