If you're online, odds are you are a member of at least one social networking site – probably Facebook. And you already know that the things you do online can affect your friends online. But you may not realize the many ways that decisions about your own privacy can affect your friends.
For example, say you have some friends on Facebook who have decided to opt in to Facebook's privacy settings. They want to keep their Facebook profile and various information from getting into Google. That's certainly understandable, whether or not they've shared anything embarrassing. But you don't share their opinion, so you've left your profile public.
Now say someone searches for you in Google. Your Facebook profile will turn up; no surprise there. But listed beneath your profile may be the names of a few of your friends...including the ones who chose to make their profiles private. For good or ill, you've just unintentionally "outed" your friends.
Even experts on search and social media can get caught. Nichola Stott, co-founder of TheMediaFlow and a specialist in search, social media, and online monetization, left her Facebook profile open. Her friend and business partner Stephen Adds closed his. As you'd expect, you can go right to Stott's Facebook profile if you search for her in Google; some of the names of her 232 friends do show up in Google. When I did the search, Adds was not among them, and I didn't feel like sifting through the Facebook list (a theme I'll return to in a bit).
If you search on "Stephen Adds" in Google, however, thanks to Stott leaving her profile open, you'll find him as well. You'll even find some of his friends listed under his name. (As of the time of writing, that link was on page two of the results). Stott thinks this result is counter intuitive; still, it makes her feel "unnerved, but not surprised...I knew it was coming."
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