At this point in the evolution of such sites we have accumulated a reasonable idea of the potential risks they pose. The learning process will no-doubt continue and, from time to time, it is possible that a painful experience may be had - but the big problems appear to be behind us.

It is possible to take a few simple steps to keep ourselves largely safe while enjoying the use of these services.

Here's my Top 5 list, based on my experiences over the past few months:

1. Understand why you created the account and set your Privacy options accordingly.

   If you haven't already checked your privacy settings or if you haven't checked them for a while, take a moment to check them now.

   If you created your account because you want to share personal experiences with your closest friends: set your Privacy options to allow only your contacts to see your account information. It's shocking to browse search results and see all the accounts that are open to the public. Clearly most of them should be private. The majority of new users on Facebook, for example, simply never got around to clicking on the Privacy link in the top right corner of the page. This is the first link you should explore when you create your Facebook account.

   Otherwise, set your privacy options to conform to your needs and expectations. Do you want publicity? Leave everything open to strangers but pay attention to what you post.

   Are you having trouble deciding? Does it seem complicated? It should be simple and easy. You might have made it complicated by trying to use your account for more than one purpose. In this case, consider having more than one account. Use a publicly accessible account under your public name for publicity and a private account under your nickname for sharing personal experiences with close friends.

2. Check your privacy options from time to time.

   Facebook, My Space, Bebo and other services are all software-driven web sites. Your personal data is in a database which can be accessed at any time by the programmers and other people in the company. For the most part this is fine. Go ahead and enjoy the use of the service - but keep in mind that there are at least two major situations that will occur from time to time that can cause frustration:

   1. Changes in service policy
   2. Bugs in the software

   From time to time there will be policy and service changes that will change the way your personal information is collected and displayed.

   A good example of this was the recent addition of a feature on Facebook that allowed the company to collect information about your purchases on partner websites. That information was presented to your friends. After a big outcry from the user community, Facebook added the ability to opt-out of the new software.

   It's important to understand that your personal information is considered to be an asset to the company that holds it. They will constantly be looking for new ways to make money from that information - so you need to constantly be paying attention to what they're doing. If they do something that offends you, you need to respond in writing to protect yourself.

   The other big issue is software bugs: They happen! To protect yourself in this area you need to take the time, every now and then, to make sure everything is running the way you want it:

   • Check your account in general. Log-out and check it again.
   • Review your privacy settings to ensure that they haven't been changed by rogue software. More often, though, you will set things in a way that you later realize is not what you want. Reviewing the settings from time to time can help you catch such errors and fix them.

   Remember to check your account while logged-in under that account - but then log out and check it again. What do you see when the system thinks you are a stranger?

   Do you see a bug in the software? If your private information is showing in places where you don't want it - you need to find a work-around. Email the service and find out what you can do to get around the problem until it's fixed.

   The above may sound like a lot of work to do - but it's not. With a bit of practice you will find that it only takes perhaps five minutes every month or so.

3. As a general rule: Put your best foot forward!

   I don't understand why anybody would do some of the things that people do. Sometimes I try to point out to somebody that there's no need to say or do something - but this doesn't seem to help in many cases. We suffer from a lack of social skills in our society - people don't seem to know what not to do and they certainly don't know how to take a suggestion.

   Generally speaking, it's fair to say that Social Networking sites can't be totally private. They won't happily be going around deleting for you all the dumb things you write or post to your account - they don't want to do that; they make money by allowing people to see that stuff long after you've forgotten it. They are, after all, commercial websites.

   Trust me: You don't know who you will be in ten years. You don't know what you will regret when you look back - so try to ask yourself about these things from time to time.

   Do you really need to write those nasty comments about that girl in your class? Do you really need to post that picture? If you need to think about it for more than a few seconds the answer is NO.

   Generally speaking, regardless of how old you are, it's a good idea to assume that you will eventually regret anything you say or do that is not positive, beneficial, uplifting and enlightening at the time you do it.

   If you need to do something fundamentally negative, turn it into something positive by presenting it in a constructive manner. In most cases, though, if there's something negative about it you need to think it through very carefully to avoid future regrets.

   We all fall into this from time to time - we all have regrets (well, psychopaths have no regrets - but everybody else does.) Why not try to avoid the questionable situations? If you find yourself posting something that is not positive for you and others - unless you have a really good long-term reason for posting it - just stop.

4. Remember that strangers are lurking

   Once, while browsing search results, I found a completely open account belonging to a friend-of-a-friend. I aimlessly clicked on a photo album and found some nice pictures of her home. Not one or two pictures of a single room - I'm talking a complete inventory of her house. She took the time to photograph every expensive item in every room. This is the sort of photo archive that people use when updating their home insurance contracts!

   I moved on, of course, but the memory stuck in my mind. Here was a young woman using Facebook in an almost entirely appropriate manner - except (a) she forgot to set her privacy options to block strangers and (b) she was showing information that not even her friends need to see.

   Here's the problem: The photos that this young lady was posting were exactly the sort of photos that thieves would use to justify raiding her home.

   I can't say it often enough: Check your privacy settings and make sure that you post information that's appropriate to the purpose you had in mind when you created the account.

5. The above being said (and I realize it's a mouthful,) here's a better idea: Get your own website. Use the Social Network sites to link to your information rather than keeping your information in a strangers' corporate database. This allows you to always have full control over your personal data. For the most part you will have the ability to delete your information when you don't want it anymore. For sure you will be able to control who has access to it.

   Does having your own website solve all the possible problems? No, you still need to pay attention to the world around you. Much of the advice above remains valid even when posting to your own site.

No doubt there are other points worth considering - drop me a line if you think of any and I'll post them here.

The situation is a little different in the somewhat special case of Linkedin.com: That site is designed from the ground up to restrict the flow of information.

It's okay to open a Linkedin.com account and proceed somewhat thoughtlessly for a short while - as long as you follow the guidelines provided: link only to people you know well and trust absolutely. The software itself is organized so that you are encouraged to only put your best foot forward, so to speak - so there's not much chance that you will post information that you do not explicitly want to see being distributed in public.

Eventually, though, you will need to review all your accounts on all the various services. Social Networking sites, in particular, require a bit of vigilance.

Don't be nervous - enjoy the web! But pay attention, please.