The longevity of posting on the web

We often hear stories of how current or prospective employers check out social media sites of their employees.

It’s not just limited to employers. In fact only yesterday while I was having coffee with a friend, she told me about her cousins wife.

Her cousin is married to a Thai, and they live in Thailand. However, when applying for her visa to UK immigration, they have now asked for access to her Facebook account.

Coincidentally, only a day later I came across the following article by Hayden Smith in The Metro newspaper.

Google exposes data ‘snooping’

GOOGLE receives seven requests a day from British government agencies for users’ internet data, new figures show.

A total of 1,343 requests for information on users of Google services including YouTube and email were made from January to June this year – the highest in Europe and the fourth highest in the world.

Google said it published the figures yesterday as a ‘deterrent to censorship’.

Attempts to acquire user data are mainly linked to criminal investigations submitted by police or other agencies. The figures do not cover all government requests and Google said it may add more categories as its tracking methods improve.

Google said that ‘data requests’ cover a vast number of circumstances.

It did not break down the different kinds of requests but said examples were account registration information and IP addresses from which a user logged in.

British authoritiesalso made 48 separate requests to the search giant to remove content in the first six months of 2010.

Campaign groups voiced fears about internet privacy.  Alex Dean, director of Big Brother Watch, said ‘This is a very worrying statistic which confirms that the government is becoming increasingly concerned with what we do online.

‘it is also a reminder that the internet is not a private place. Every search is made, email sent and page browsed is recorded by someone, somewhere.’

David Drummed, a senior Google executive, said: ‘We believe that this kind of transparency can be a deterrent to censorship.’

Google has a team trained to evaluate and respond to requests from government agencies.