The other day I posted about creepers lurking on the internet...waiting to snatch up photos of our kids for either their own advertising or worse...their own "enjoyment." There were a lot of really great comments and I want to thank everyone for your input and advise! The consensus (at least of those that commented) was that everyone has at least a slight worry about this.
I think it's important to further point out what Rachele said:
"I wanted to comment to be clear, though, that removing your pictures from facebook, shutting down or privatizing a previous public blog, or being careful of who your facebook friends are, are ALL false senses of security. There are plenty of archival engines out there that have indexed your public blog pages such that even if you take it down, its archive can still be found. I do not know of existing similar facebook archives but certainly the technology is possible and I am willing to bet large sums of money that it is out there. Also a professional photographer told me that ANY photos uploaded to facebook are no longer your property (depending on which terms of agreement are in effect at a time). So if you have uploaded it and then later remove it, no matter, as while it was uploaded, it was archived and is no longer your property. If your FaceBook friends use any applications at all, then those applications have access to view your profile/photos/etc (whatever you allow your friends to see). Facebook security is a joke, or at least it has been."
And I also really like with Annette said:
"The only comfort I get is knowing that thousands, perhaps millions, of families have posted pictures of their children through FaceBook and other sites. There is such an over abudnance of pictures out there, do they really need to pick mine? (Of course, I hope this decision never comes back to haunt me...)"
I think this whole issue is why I love back profiles. It keeps anonymity, and yet, can hold beautiful photos. Back profiles also seeing things through a child's eye. What are they looking at? What are they thinking? It also means I don't have to try to capture the perfect smile or expression...it can simply be a picture capturing a moment. Take my header picture as an example; it's my youngest son watching his daddy and older brother canoeing. I can almost read his mind as he's standing there longingly looking after them. Or this picture of the Puddle Jumper. I can only imagine what he's thinking as he's about to land in that puddle.
SO, that said, I have a personal family blog. I don't keep it private, but I also don't want the world to know what I'm saying and doing on it. I took search engine capability off of it and don't have it on my public profile anymore. I'm sure random people have found it. And yet, I don't want to make it private because I want it easily accessible. Might it come back to haunt? Maybe. And I also post pictures on FaceBook. I love showing my kids off and I love when friends comment on how cute they are! Do I post naked pictures? No. But that doesn't mean someone could take their faces off and put them on another body. However, I'm going to hope that, as Annette said, there are millions of other families out there that have posted pictures of their kids so hopefully they won't choose mine. And yet, I want this blog to be public. I am going to keep this information close at hand though and be very choosy about the pictures I post.
This (along with something Rachele does occasionally on FaceBook) has also given me a new idea for a post. Each week I am going to put up a back profile (or a non-headed picture). Your job is to give a caption for the photo. After the week's end, the winning caption and caption's author will be featured. The rules might change slightly as I think about it some more and eventually (once I learn how) I want to give everyone a chance to link up their back profiles too!
Readers: Thanks for all the comments the other day! I really appreciate all the feedback you gave. I even got to hear from some people that don't normally comment which I love. Keep em coming :)
