Many people use social networking sites everyday.
There are accounts on things like Facebook, MySpace, Youtube, Twitter, and more where people post pictures, videos, and information about their day to day lives.
Many have privacy settings to help make one's account a bit more private but can one really expect privacy? With Facebook for example there recently was a big problem where if you had your privacy settings turned on, they were turned off after agreeing to the new terms.
Many users felt bad because they expect things like privacy settings to be left alone and set the way they left them in the first place.
This information about themselves was free to the whole world until they found out and turned them off.
Issues about privacy and private information will always be around as long as an individual is posting this information online.
One can expect some privacy from the company or service and hope that the data is secure but you never really know.
There are many situations where the information could be compromised.
Another issue is if a government asks for that data.
If the data is on the server and the company is willing to work with a government agency or law enforcement, it makes it difficult for you to have your privacy in that specific situation since most companies are going to comply with the government's wishes for information.
The rule of thumb is that if you want privacy in an information age, you can't have it posted on accounts and servers that you have no control over.
Be sure to only post information about yourself that you wouldn't mind others finding out about because it can happen.
If you want something to actually be private, then you have to take the responsibility to keep that information private yourself.
Social networking and privacy issues are a hot topic.
Many users felt that their privacy was compromised with a certain companies policy changes.
Realistically, it's difficult to remain private when you give away your information to servers you don't control.