I watched Eagle Eye quite some time back, and I can’t stop thinking about my online activities after the watching movie. Sure, it is a work of fiction, but somehow or other, I find myself being convinced that we (in general) are spending too much time online, and that we are exposing too much of ourselves on the internet.
I’m not sure about you, but I do have a tonne of online accounts — from emails to online banking accounts to my blogs to the forums that I am a part of to photo sharing sites to social media sites to online bookmarks, you name it, I (think I) have it!
So today, I started doing some account-housekeeping. I have just sent an email each to Bloglines, Amazon Associates and PayPerPost to request that my account be deleted from their respective systems because “I did not utilize it as much as I thought I would”.
This decision is also spurred by something that happened quite recently. A Malaysian government department used a picture of mine (which I uploaded into Flickr) in a brochure that they designed and circulated nationwide. My picture was used on the front page of the brochure but as the photographer, I wasn’t given the credit that I so deserved. I wrote to the said department, and the Deputy Director said that the picture was downloaded by one of their interns and they thought the picture belonged to that intern. I accepted their explanation, and I explained that they could be sued for using pictures without crediting the photographers.
I have this cute little notebook into which I wrote all my online accounts and passwords, so in the next few days, I shall be combing the little notebook, removing whatever online accounts that I am not active in (so that I can sign up for other stuff that I am currently interested in) :upsidedown: It is going to take a while, but I guess this is something that needs to be done sooner rather than later. Plus, I can’t go to bed knowing that I have revealed too much personal information on the internet :grr:
Are you worried about your online presence? Do you think you have revealed too much personal information on the internet? What do you do about it?
Updates: As of Nov 14th, I have opted out of 13 online accounts that I very seldom use. THIRTEEN!
I’m having like 30+ accounts and having problems remembering the pass. Of course i don’t use all 30. In fact i think i’m using only 3.
Mmm, sometimes I’m concerned by this. I’ve tried to limit personal information on my blog and related accounts and I think I’ve been successful. However, if someone really wanted to find my real name and address they could.
I guess that this is a risk we take in using the internet. We can be ‘out of touch’ and exclude ourselves entirely, or just read, but never interact, or take the risk and get in it.
There is of course place for wisdom and I think minimising your accounts is a good idea. I would consider doing this. Although I like that I have almost complete monopoly of my screen name. ;)