Congratulations, You Found a Photo of My Daughter Online [Article]

Slate reporter Amy Webb explains the pitfalls of sharing personal information online using her own recent experience:

…when we share even innocent images information about our kids, we endanger their future anonymity and expose them to data monitoring by governments and private corporations that we can’t control…

Customers? Or Lawyers? Who do you value more? [News]

One woman who loved Nutella so much she created a facebook page to celebrate World Nutella Day. Over seven years, she’s built a massive community of passionate customers. Nutella’s lawyers, of course, didn’t like it, & so she’s received a cease and desist order. PR nightmare? You bet!
PS: The matter has since been resolved, she says, after a vitriolic backlash from the customers.

Letter to Applebee’s boss [Letters]

You may (or may not) have missed an small but bizarre news report out of the US: When pastor Ms Alois Bell who was at an Applebee’s restaurant got the bill, instead of either leaving a tip or just ignoring it, she wrote “I give God 10%, why should you get 18%’ referring to the 18% tip printed on the bill. The poor waitress posted a picture of the bill on a social networking site (with no other reference than the customer’s signature). Applebee’s decided that the act was worthy of the watiress’ dismissal. The dismissal prompted a backlash against Applebee’s action, including this letter from a Michael T Zybura, a furious regular customer who is also a part-time pizza delivery guy.

Three conversations for parents: navigating networked publics [Article]

This short article is probably more suited for parents of young children:  Microsoft researcher Dana Boyd has some advice for parents who are struggling with their children’s use of social media: she reminds us that the advice that children need to negotiate networked publics parallels advice that parents have always given when their children encounter public spaces. The networked society that we live in today may feel radically different, but many youth are struggling with the things they’ve always struggled with.They’re trying to figure out who they are and how they fit into the bigger world. They want to hang out with friends, but they’re also trying to figure out the status games of their peers.

Socializing Sex [Article]

Ted Nyman worries about the invasiveness of social media with a provocative idea – check-ins, reviews &  coupons – all when using an imaginary site called sex.ly  The site is imaginary, but his fears aren’t: “….Slowly, gradually, without realizing: we stop participating in our own lives. We become spectators, checking off life achievements for reasons we do not know. At some point, everything we do is done soley to broadcast these things to casual friends, stalkers, and sycophants.”