Many people claim “lack of privacy” the reason they don’t use social networks. A friend of mine states that he doesn’t use it because he doesn’t want the government spying on him.

But then there are others, and quite a few of them for that matter, who don’t mind giving out details like birth dates, email addresses, and other information on Facebook, without a second thought!

In a study conducted by Sophos, an Australian Security Team, up to 46% of users blindly accepted friend requests from fake Facebook accounts created by the Sophos team. Once the friend requests were accepted, personal information was more than readily available.

Now think about the implications of this in general for pretty much all of us but especially so for those groups (elderly, youths, etc.) who are more susceptible to predators online.

Mack Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, stresses the importance of using privacy tools. Facebook has also recently formed a safety advisory board to improve online safety for its users.

So! Here’s the bottom-line. Even if you are smart and don’t think you will ever fall prey to crooks online, think twice before adding friends arbitrarily. Privacy or lack there of is nothing to take lightly.

Don't go where others are going. Protect your privacy, protect your information on social networks. Forewarned is forearmed, right?