User reaction to Facebook's recent mood study revealed just how little many users understand the site's terms of service, specifically its privacy policies, and its ambiguous data usage policies.
But Facebook users are growing concerned about privacy issues and those concerns are prompting an increasing number of parents to keep baby pictures offline.
Parents are worried about how the company could potentially share baby photos or videos with advertisers or use it for its own purposes. Parents are also concerned about online pedophiles trolling for photos of children.
Some parents are going as far as placing a complete social blackout on their kids, only referring to them by nicknames and never posting images onto the Internet. Other parents are opting to share strategically shot photos and limiting identifying information.
For Sonia Rao, a stay-at-home mother of a one-year-old, keeping her child's image and information offline plays to her instincts.
"I just have a vague discomfort having her photograph out there for anyone to look at," says Rao. "When you meet a new person and go to their account, you can look them up, look at photos, videos, know that they are traveling."
Scott Steinberg, a St. Louis-based business and technology consultant, is a parent in the social blackout camp. He has approximately 4,800 Facebook friends and a "no tolerance" policy on sharing information about his child, he says.
"If I don't want somebody to know about my child, to take an active interest in them, to recognize them in a city street or as they are leaving the schoolyard, the easiest way to do that is to not have any identifying information out about them," says Steinberg.
Social network experts are also advising parents to be careful when posting group photos of children and their friends. A good rule of thumb is to ask the other parents before sharing images of their kids on any website.
