All About Louis Gray

Meet Louis Gray. He likes social networking. He’s not terribly worried about privacy. With a quick internet search, CNN gathered details on his three kids, his wife and her recent purchases, his political leanings, his movie preferences, his dentist of choice and his phone number.

While Louis Gray’s case is a bit extreme — he posts publicly to two blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare and Blippy, a site that automatically uploads credit card purchases from the family Visa — this type of digital laundry-airing isn’t all that uncommon these days. A half-billion people use the social network Facebook, and each of those users posts an average of 90 “pieces of content” on that site each month, according to the company.

Louis Gray has made his choices. Most of us make privacy-related descisions without really thinking about it. It’s probably better to have a personal policy first, then start sharing.