by Lucius Trae

Created on: August 19, 2010

As the Internet has developed, concerns over privacy have become more commonplace. Recently, Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, reminded people of the importance of monitoring what they do using online social networks. More specifically, he pointed out that Google has access to a large amount of personal information - as do other companies and even individual web users. This means that if someone puts something online they may find embarrassing in the future, it's probably going to be available to someone, even if it's only saved in the database of a Google employee. This point is nothing new, but Schmidt went further and claimed that in the future, people will need to change their names to distance themselves from their social networking past.

Many people believe they are entitled to privacy online, and they feel that actions must be taken to ensure that actions on social networks do not haunt people throughout their life. People are unhappy with the growing lack of privacy online, and Eric Schmidt isn't going to win a popularity contest by pointing out that Google knows about their personal life. He is quick to remind users that Google has business interests, and they would lose money by revealing private information. Wouldn't most companies? That's hardly a guarantee of anonymity for those using the Internet's #1 search engine.Why is he bringing all this up?

Recently, Facebook has been receiving large criticisms over their growing lack of concern for user privacy. In fact, the creator of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, made the claim that "privacy is dead" on the Internet. Clearly, the social networking giant, Facebook, has a different outlook towards the importance of privacy online. Since changes in Facebook's privacy policies, many people have been critical of them or even left the site. The lack of real alternatives to Facebook is seen by some as the reason for its continued success. Google has previously tried to purchase Facebook, in fact, and Microsoft purchased a percentage of the company with the condition that they be notified if a sale to Google were likely. With the prospect of purchasing Facebook increasingly unlikely, Google is developing a competitive alternatives to Facebook, according to some sources. The decision to establish themselves as sympathetic to privacy will benefit them in the marketplace.

The future of privacy online is uncertain, but it's certainly true that believing information on social networking sites is "safe" is an unsound policy.

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