A: First of all - ALL of them can be used. The most evil and notorious?
- REUNION.COM
- CLASSMATES.COM
- Any reunion type sites! Stay away!
Anything reunion oriented. Those feed directly to Intellius and U.S. Search etc. They feed to all attorney databases. Why they like those? Duh! Your name, age, where you went to school, who your friends are is all there, provided by you. What a better way to nab you than have you incriminate yourself and broadcast to the world who you are and where you are, where you work.
DO NOT sign up for those sites and if you did, then use a diversion tactic and slowly post false info that you've moved to another state, changed jobs...then delete your account and disappear.
Facebook, MySpace, Twitter - all places where you do not want to reveal name or location. Don't text from a phone app and show latitude longitude either. That's stupid. Be careful what you share on TwitPic or other sites. Host photos on your own privately registered site. Make a password protect for friends and name your photos a bunch of jumbled numbers and letters so Google Images doesn't show them to anyone who types in your name.
If you're concerned about privacy, then start creating false info about you on reunion type sites and eventually fade from the sites altogether.
Delete your MySpace. Don't put your age on MySpace, put 100 or something so you can't be tracked. Learn to use the "Hide" info codes. The new MySpace format allows for more private pages, but MySpace is the personals equivalent to Craigslist. It attracts a wide audience and is the first stop of any stalker trying to find you.
Use a different email address for all social neworking sites that is totally different than any emails you give your friends or anyone else. This way no one can type your email address into social sites and locate your page.
I'll write more tips on this later, but it answers a very important and intelligent question from our reader. This reader is "thinking"! Let's all be more like that, and think about how sites we think are safe, are making money selling our info to collectors, to stalkers and to spammers.
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