Facebook users, get ready.  Since Facebook’s number of members has skyrocketed well past MySpace, and other social networking sites, regional networks are becoming obsolete.  Regional networks have opened up a slew of privacy issues.  I have fallen victim myself, not realizing that my entire regional network of Washington DC could see my profile.  My fiancé’s former “friend” decided to start cyber-stalking me after he turned her down for a relationship and started dating me.  This went on for quite some time right under my nose!  It wasn’t until I mistakenly let her best friend and her family move in with us that I was advised of the cyber stalking.  Seriously, be careful who you tell what to because when y’all fight, it all comes out!  Though I still have my regional network, I’ve locked everything off to friends only.  Really, who knows who is in your “regional network?”

In the next few weeks, we’ll be seeing some changes and messages from Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg.  He’s promised to let us fine tune our privacy settings so that we can control exactly who sees what.  This is a great thing!  Now, perhaps you can add your co-workers or, dare I say it, even your boss to your friends list and keep them separate from your friends who post photos of you passed out drunk with Sharpie on your face! 

Of course, some people are speculating that this might be getting people into trouble… If you’re creepin’ around on your girl, you’re gonna get caught!  Let me forewarn you on that one.  The moment you forget to log out of Facebook on your way to the bathroom and she sees that she’s been blocked from photos of you and that other girl who was supposedly just a “family friend” at last week’s get together, slobbering all over each other… Let’s just say it’s going to be bad… and I can’t wait! 

So please, use the new privacy tools responsibly.  I love the idea, but I’d hate to see it go haywire.  With that said, Mom, I’m still not adding you on Facebook.

Time Magazine had previously labeled Tagged “The World’s Most Annoying Website” for its intrusive and deceptive email scam claiming your friends have sent you photos, or have posted photos of you on this unpopular website, Tagged.  I refuse to even link the website.  However, once you sign up you’re easily deceived into spamming your entire contact list with an email stating you sent them photos on Tagged, requesting them to register on the site to see the photos you never even uploaded so that the cycle continues.

A new class action lawsuit filed last week (Thank you for the heads up, Mr.  Malley) against Tagged by Miriam Slater and Sara Golden.  The lawsuit alleges that Tagged “in executing a massive email solicitation campaign to register new members, failed to disclose to consumers that it was using its members’ email address books to propagate yet more solicitation messages to appear as if they were personal communications from the consumers whose email contacts it had pilfered, and Defendant’s messages included false statements that the senders were seeking to contact or share photographs with the recipients.”  Last month the New York Attorney General also stated he planned to sue Tagged for “deceptive email marketing and invasion of privacy.”

I am pretty sure I signed up for this website in the past.    I am usually very careful about the emails I select and have in the past been duped into sending social networking emails to my entire contact list which includes everything from potential employers to my great Aunt Sandy.  Suffice to say, I’ve never uploaded any photos to Tagged and I never plan on it.  That site is the devil!

I’m not sure if I should expect more out of Harvard graduates and Tagged founders, Greg Tseng and Johann Schleier-Smith or if this exactly the kind of scam that would come out of an Ivy League school.  I think every website and email host should have the “recall message” option like Microsoft Outlook does.  It would have saved me a lot of trouble in the past!

Nevertheless, if I get a new email from “you” inviting me to see photos on Tagged, not only will I pull out my Homey the Clown sock and bop you over the head with it (’cause Homey don’t play that), I will also start sending you Huggies Network emails like someone so kindly registered me for.  Thanks for the free diaper.  Really.

According to ComScore, Facebook had 87.7 million unique visitors in the month of July, increasing their visitor count by about 10.7 million from the month of June whereas MySpace’s unique visitor count went down by 168k totalling 68.3 million, and Twitter only went up by 1.1 million unique visitors, totalling 21.2 million in the month of July.  That’s a mouth full but it shows the progress of Facebook.  Twitter is growing like a weed, just not compared to Facebook’s monopoly on the Social Networking sites.

I see my friends making status comments saying they’re not even sure why people still use MySpace.  However, I see benefits of both.  MySpace offers customization, and after all, it was the first social networking site to really go big.  Back before that, we were stuck with sites like Friendster and FaceTheJury.  To find old school buddies, we had to sign up at Classmates.com and pay their outrageous fees on a monthly basis.  I guess that’s why I have a bit of a loyalty to MySpace.  I also use it to keep in touch with acquaintances that I might want to network with at a later time.  Facebook seems so much more personal, but I love the fact that I don’t have to show every person every side of me.  Now, my aunts can add me on Facebook without me being worried they’ll lose all respect for me when they realize some of the things that come out of my mouth, or in this case, fingertips would make a sailor blush.  All I have to do is block them from status comments!  This also works with the people who like to leave inappropriate comments in my status messages as well.  It’s a win/win for me.

As for Twitter, I’m still trying to get the hang of updating it.  I like to use it for when I’m out and I take a picture of something with my iPhone.  I am using it for blog updates too.  It’s a great little resource but it will never trump the likes of Facebook and MySpace no matter how hard it tries.  It does well for what it is, but if it changed its entire concept of micro-blogging, it just wouldn’t be Twitter.

So, it’s not surprising to me that Facebook is doing so much better than the rest.  Now, if I could just stop getting stupid app requests that I have to keep blocking, we’d all be good.

Back in the days of AOL profiles when no one really knew who we were, there wasn’t much issue with Internet Privacy.  I’m not referring to unsecure sites asking for your credit card number, but sites like MySpace, Facebook and the like.  It seems everyone under 30, and even some senior citizens have at least one profile of the two major Social Networking Sites.  These sites show your personal lives laid out in a neat little page for all, or few to see.  They tell where you work, where you live, phone numbers, etc.  Facebook, a stalker’s dream even tells you when someone is going through relationship problems.  My favorite is “it’s complicated.” 

Part of me really enjoys the attention I receive from friends commenting on what I’m doing that day, my vacation, and new photos.  These are people I would otherwise probably not talk to ever again if I hadn’t found them searching for old friends and classmates.  I was never much of a social butterfly, and these sites allow me to socialize without being in a crowded room of people where I would likely have a panic attack and try desperately to fade into the background. 

Then there are those I don’t know all that well.  Friends I met via internet forums, through other friends, and maybe a few that fell in the cracks whom I don’t even know from Adam – all able to see where I’m going this weekend, and how dirty my floors are from the photos of my pit bull puppy, Lily.  How much do I really want them to know?

I pick and choose who gets to see what.  I’ll never let most of you into my private LiveJournal, and even if you try to send me a friend request on my Facebook, I can promise you I will undoubtedly not accept.  These are places reserved for my closest friends, family.  Perhaps I will create a separate MySpace and Facebook profile if any of you request me to do so.  Until then, I’d like some of who I am to remain private.

The problem with letting strangers in is that you will inevitably get “haters.”  Most people don’t tell you their skeletons but in the past, I’ve let it all out, freely.  It bit me in the rear very quickly.  I was young and I suppose I was seeking attention; however, I didn’t estimate how much negative attention I would actually get.  I let people get to me and wore my emotions on my sleeve for all to see.  Clearly, a rookie mistake.  I withdrew to avoid the attention and after all was said and done, years went by and the negative attention almost ceases to exist.  This time around, I’ve got other plans.

Some people are afraid of internet predators and psycho stalkers.  Yeah, I’ve had my share of stalkers.  I even dated one.  Those psycho stalkers are somebody’s next-door neighbor.  Just because you met them on the internet doesn’t make them any more psycho. 

So, my question to the readers (however few I may have at this point) is: How secure do you feel having your personal business strewn all over the internet?  Would you be afraid if your boss or your mother Googled you?  What do you do to separate the internet from everyday reality, or has the internet become your reality?