Privacy? What privacy?

"How privacy vanishes online" - NYT article
I just finished reading this article and the 129 comments that followed it. My gut reaction was to immediately remove all identifying info from FB. Then I realized I'd have to remove this blog as well, and go back to the writing sites I had abandoned but still had my articles available at the mere entering of my name in Google. I'd have to remove my Classmates info and try to remember all the other reunion sites I had registered at and freely shared pertinent personal facts. And then there were the three ancestry sites I'd contributed to, trying to find the easiest site to work with, and... and ... and... what else? I can't even remember all the places I had spread my seed!

It's clear I'd emptied the privacy pillow of its feathers over ten years ago when I started using the internet and was lead straight to Classmates. But it didn't begin with the advent of the PC and the almighty internet.

My life was an open book long before the web gave me another platform to let it all hang out. I started publishing my own magazine in 1981. The personal details revealed by me and my readers, many of whom were letter and article writers for the magazine, were astounding. We implicated our children and husbands in our stories and letters, innocently gave away our locations and much more.

Even those who do not use social networking systems are not  free of intrusion. It's all too easy for savvy researchers to get all the info they want about anyone, for good or evil intent.

I don't worry about myself at all. My vital years on the planet are over. My worries, like those of all mothers, concern my children. It's ironic that several of them are much more careful about revealing their personal info than I am. The older I get the more I learn through them.