Social networking: promise and peril

There are plenty of advantages to using social networking services, like Facebook, provided that you choose your friends wisely. I've never believed in having thousands of friends - the human mind just doesn't stretch that far - and try to limit my social networking contacts to a minimal set. I'd rather have a small number of high quality friends than a large number of connections to people I have little knowledge of or interest in.

Ever since social networking sites began to become popular it seemed like a no-brainer that sooner or later this data would become of high interest to insurance companies trying to assess risk, and this article is the first that I've read which backs up this suspicion. It doesn't explicitly mention insurance companies, but since risk assessment is their core business it would seem very likely that they are also in the same game as the money lenders.

According to this article there are ways that you can try to reduce the chances of your social networking activity being leaked to companies who might use the information against your interests, but since sites like Facebook are privately owned they have both opportunity and motive to sell your data to whomever they choose, and terms of service can be altered at any time and without negotiation.

If this seems harmless, remember that insurance companies include medical insurance, and that giving these organisations more reasons to raise their premiums may make the difference between being able to pay them or not for people in some countries.

So if you think social networking is just about you and your friends, and maybe a few advertisers too, this may not be a very realistic perception. Overall though I think the advantages outweigh the perils, provided that you take sensible precautions and are careful not to post information which could be used against you. Keep in mind that you are your own public relations department online.