The Hindu Business Line : Don't fill all the blanks

One needs to be careful while giving out personal details in social networks. Before you select something from a list, better check whether it is really what you want to convey. If you are not sure, just leave it blank. It's safer.

My friend's Facebook profile read: Interested in women. He had thought selecting ‘Interested in men' would send wrong signals. So he decided to tick the ‘safer' option. It did not turn out to be as ‘safe' as he would have liked it. His wife's friend (who has a Facebook account) noticed this and promptly informed the wife. The rest is chaotic history. He managed to wriggle out saying he had not checked the ‘Looking for dating' or ‘Looking for relationship' option.

Many of us don't bat an eyelid when we allow Facebook to ‘show full birthday profile'. Selecting this option allows all your friends and sometimes, if you haven't selected your security settings properly, anyone to view your date of birth. With many credit card and banking companies just using the date of birth as a security check, you make it easy for anyone to break into your bank account.

Another friend of mine was quite careful while selecting what he wanted to reveal in the Facebook profile, but failed to notice that as he scrolled down using the scroll button in the mouse, the ‘Married' option he had selected had scrolled to Widowed (the last option). He was not aware of the unintentional blunder till he started getting calls and SMSes asking whether “everything was OK” with him. He realised what had happened only when one of his friends revealed the source — the Facebook profile. He promptly logged in and corrected the offending information. As I write this, he is still thanking his stars that his wife has not seen it.

R. Dinakaran