What Not to Tell Facebook Friends: Online Safety Tips

Excellent article today in the New York Times about the information you should (and shouldn’t) share online.

Jennifer Saranow Schultz has great tips and resources in her article, What NOT to Tell Facebook Friends.

Go to the New York Times to get the whole scoop but a few of the tips from identity theft experts include:

• Keep your child’s date of birth private.  This one is pretty easy, as we all want to keep our child’s sensitive information from potential identity thieves.
• Don’t post your address  or your mother’s maiden name.
• Don’t post details about when you’re out and about.
• Don’t publicize when you are on vacation.

John Sileo’s website is another credible resource for online safety tips.  Sileo has some very simple instructions for editing Facebook Places settings and other tips that everyone should read.

Social networking and the world wide web is amazing.  The geek girls here at V3 are addicted to the ‘net but we all need to remember to be careful out there.  I give my children the following advice—please feel free to roll your eyes like they do:

If you wouldn’t say it or do it at the local mall—-don’t say it or do it on Facebook. You have friends on Facebook but you also have strangers watching.  Use common sense.