Indecent exposure

In the old days, most people could only be found on the Internet if their names were unique enough to Google, and if they belonged to clubs or companies with Contact pages and so forth. Now it's much easier to find and contact people on sites such as Facebook or Friendsreunited, particularly if you have mutual friends or you know somone's geographical location or company name. There are 143,000 hits for Martha Jones on Google. Yet there are just 44 on Facebook, and 22 on FriendsReunited.

This is all well and good, and a great way to rekindle contact with long lost friends and stay in touch. But the problem with many social networking sites is that they cross the line between business and leisure.

Facebook disgracebook

One friend recently accepted an invitation to join Facebook after being bombarded with invitations by colleagues and business associates. She accepted their "Friend" invitations - it seemed rude to refuse - and was able to view their profiles. But she was horrified by what she saw.

Personal, even flirtatious messages were posted on people's "Wall" messageboards. Photo albums that really should have been limited to private display were on full public view. People openly showed off extreme political leanings, regularly updated their status as "drunk" or "wasted", casually used expletives, and created and joined controversial groups and networks. These weren't university students, they were professional people in their thirties and forties. They were people that belonged to a Facebook Group named after their company, and at the same time join a Group named "I want Captain Jack Sparrow to kidnap me and make me his love slave" or "Conjugal Visits for Paris Hilton".

The particular problem with Facebook and similar social networking sites is that people generally expect to sign up with their real names. It's one thing to set up a MySpace profile of Sweet_Habibi_99 and reveal your shameful passions for George Clooney and Amr Diab. It's quite another to post yourself up on Bebo as Gordon Martin, age 44, originally of Slough, who works at SecuriNet Inc in Doha, Qatar, and then post about your love of body piercings and various pictures of yourself with scantily clad women.

You can't hide online

Your colleagues will find you. Your boss can easily chance upon your profile. Potential business partners - some of who may be conservative in their outlook, particularly in this region - may stumble across it. Employers routinely google job candidates and will rapidly pinpoint them via networking sites. If they are looking for someone sober and discreet and they unearth a party-loving, near-pornographic profile, that person won't get hired. And if they are already in a job, they may even get fired.

Bebo allows people to keep their profiles viewable only to their "Personal Friends" - but how many users remember to click the privacy option? It also notes: "If you join your School or College on Bebo then other registered Bebo members will be able to view your profile." That is likely to be hundreds of strangers you never knew at University who can now read all about you.

Facebook also has privacy options, but they are generally off by default. You can prevent strangers from finding your profile, but only if you manually disable access. Many users don't even give this function a thought, partly because the point is for people to be able to find one another. But the question is: who are those people, and what are they going to find out about you? Do you really want to flaunt your private affairs in cyberspace alongside your education and work resume?