Think Before Posting Your Info Online

Details Put On Sites Such As 'Facebook' Could Come Back To Haunt You

(CBS)  The university says it doesn't troll Facebook or the Web "but, if we are trying to resolve an issue with a student, and we become aware of additional information that we can legitimately access, then we may decide to do so."

Experts say schools across the country are using Facebook and MySpace images as grounds for discipline and expulsion, and college admissions offices are using them to narrow down their choices, a rude awakening for kids who thought they were just having fun.

"In a very competitive atmosphere, trying to get into a good school, into the right team, to get the right scholarship, do you really want your public persona to be the drunken slut that you said you are on MySpace?" asks WiredSafety.org Executive Director Parry Aftab. "Unless you're willing to take your MySpace or other profile and attach it to your college application, don't post it publicly."

Employers are scanning Web postings as well, Smith says.

Ellen Simonetti was fired from her job as a Delta Airlines flight attendant after posing, in uniform, for pictures some might consider somewhat provocative in an empty plane and posting them on her blog.

Like many who post on the Internet, she presumed only a handful of people could see it.

"I was completely shocked" by her firing, Simonetti told Smith. "There was no warning. And then I took the pictures down and I thought that would resolve things. And obviously, it didn't."

Delta says it doesn't comment on personnel issues.

Racy photos can also do severe harm to the chances of finding a job, Smith says.

"Your career can be sabotaged without you even knowing it, in a nanosecond," warns Chicago-based recruiter Christine Hirsch.

The Web has become a cheap and easy source of information for recruiters, according to Pam Dixon, executive director of the World Privacy Forum: "It was a very big trend even a year ago, but now it's just part of the game."

And, she adds, once those pictures are on the internet, they're out there: "The dirty little secret about social networking sites is that they're archived, which means they're saved forever … There is a cottage industry of businesses right now that are kind of mushrooming, and their entire function is to archive material that's on the Web. … If you put your profile up on the Web and you've left it up there for 48 to 72 hours, the chances are that it's already been archived somewhere."

"Stop for a minute, think for a minute," Aftab urges. "What you post online stays online."

What's more, Smith points out, these sites own the rights to your pictures once you post them.