Recently, I read this article on Google Buzz which exposed vulnerabilities of Google when it comes to privacy of users.
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/hiner/?p=3822&tag=nl.e101
When I read the article, it didn’t impact me that much because we all know that all of Google’s applications are integrated and use SSO. Of course, accessing your address book and sent mail list without your authorization is really bad. Google shouldn’t have done that but I guess they will learn from this blunder. But, is it only about what you have in Google? Human beings, being social animals like to have a huge social life. In this era, the only way to be connected with our friends and loved ones is through social networking sites. I myself am a member of at least 4 social networking sites if you do not include the professional networking ones. Shockingly, even after password protection, you still do not have any control over the privacy of data you put on the www.
Recently, I got to know about this website through a random pop-up http://www.spokeo.com/ If you know any information about a person, such as name/email/phone number, you can get every possible information about that person. Latest tweets, facebook updates, political inclination, credit history, value of properties, family members, sun sign predictions 
…you name it, the information is out there for a cost of less than 3 dollars per month. Isn’t it outrageous?
The good and bad thing (depending on how you take it) about this site is, it is targeted exclusively towards people who live in US. When I tried with couple of people living elsewhere, it could not pull up details like it did for people who live in US. Is it a security hole of US networking sites or the overall system in the country itself? Thank God we do not have an identity like SSN in India, at least till Nandan Nilekani completes the project.
Be very wary of what you put on Internet, it can be seen by anyone on earth and not just your friends.
