In today's Wall St. Journal, there's an article titled "Searching for Details Online, Lawyers Facebook the Jury: Attorneys Seek Cues on Potential Jurors in Networking Sites". For the most part, I don't think this is news. I use social media all the time in my research, to glean reactions to a product, to better understand an executive in a company, or to see how an organization is viewed.
Already, divorce lawyers have used data from car transponders (used for electronic payment on toll roads) to prove that the defendant was not in the office that night. It is common knowledge that employers will look at candidates' social media sites, as well as their credit reports.
While it may feel creepy that the lawyers eyeing you in the jury pool know where you went and who you partied with last Friday night, they only know that if you posted those incriminating photos on Facebook without first ensuring that the photo was not publicly viewable.
On the other hand, it's hard not to be paranoid after having read the WSJ's excellent series titled "What They Know". These articles look at how much individual information is collected by online marketers' tracking tools. Fortunately, they also include some basic steps you can take to limit the amount of information you "leak" to marketers.
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