Sometimes getting something for free really isn't free at all. When you consider what you must give up in order to have that "free" thing... Well just taking the time to look a bit closer will show you what you must give away in order to have it for free.

Let's take a look at the Facebook example... This started off as a really cool way to catch up with your family & friends - even finding old friends that you haven't heard from in ages. But the privacy has gone haywire! If you haven’t read any of the articles about this, just do a quick search and you will find that many people are very upset that their privacy is being invaded more now than before. Even if you don’t have details in your profile, your comments, likes and posts are going to be accessed by advertisers so that they can pop up ads geared to what’s being said.

It’s bad enough that those ads are being displayed, but now they are peeking in at what we are talking about. I don’t know about you, but I certainly would rather not have that kind of invasion on my privacy. But I understand that they have to make their money somehow.. right? Who the heck is gonna pay all those people that update and monitor the social network? Well - the advertisers of course! But that’s really only one problem with Facebook.

If you’re on the social network much, you probably have lots of friends - and many of these people may even be people you don’t really know. After all, it’s a great business adventure to connect up with hundreds or thousands or millions of people so that you can let them know what you are doing... But Facebook is supposed to be a “Social Network” not a “Business Network”. So what the heck is the difference? Well, let’s take a look at LinkedIn. They clearly state that this is a network for people in business - working a job - or looking to connect with other business people. It’s not a “Social Network” like Facebook. It’s different. You don’t start chatting about your dog that just died on LinkedIn. But you may hear people offer something about business on Facebook. So it gets kind of confusing. But there really is a fine line of posting on Facebook.

Some people will say you are spamming if your posts are about business on Facebook. Yet we allow business owners to expose us to ads. And not just on the side. Now we see those ads pop up in our own timeline. For example, if you watch a short video someone has posted, then go back to your timeline, you will see suggestions for watching other videos. Like YouTube will suggest various videos depending on what you watch. So it’s really rampart all over the free zone to direct us to something else. Have you had enough yet?

Where can you begin to make changes to avoid the advertising dilemma? Try paying for a system that will keep your preferences private. Even a small monetary fee is better than losing your privacy and in addition it provides a way to keep out the predators. I didn’t mention that earlier, but I’m sure many people can relate to being fooled by the fake accounts all over Facebook! It’s really an ongoing problem and quite scary. I’ve had to unfriend several accounts because I didn’t feel safe or comfortable continuing to keep these people as friends. So I’m fighting back by starting my own safe private small world. This may be a small change, but I feel like this will make a difference to my privacy.

Small Worlds are better, safer, & smarter.