The Internet and the Death of Privacy

[AtLast]

Originally Posted by Medusa

I'd like to hear folk's thoughts about the "Who visited my profile" feature here.

We have that feature as a fun way to see who's looking. It was meant as a "calling card" to say "Hey, Ebon stopped by your profile today!"

We have talked a couple of times about turning the feature completely off when frustrated with complaints like "I feel unsafe that so-and-so looked at my profile".

What do you think? Would you rather know who visited your profile or would you rather wonder about it?

My thought has always been that whatever is in your profile on this site is fairly "public" info, that there isn't really a reasonable expectation of privacy.

Curious what others think!

I agree with you tthat my profile here is anything but private. No, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy concerning our profiles here and I think it is up to us as individuals to keep that in mind when setting up our profile.

I don't have a problem with the "Who Visited" feature because of the fact that I think it is silly to have any expectation of privacy about our profiles. In fact, it could be a means for members to demonstrate stalking if they were to run into a serious situation and needed to report abuse- especially outside of the site in legal settings. And hopefully, something like that never arises for anyone here!

I do, however wish there was a feature that went beyond the ignore function that would enable our being able to stop members we don't want to visit our profiles at any time for any reason. Something akin to how FB allows members to block people from seeing any posts etc., even if you share friends. But, I have no idea if that is possible on vbulletin or if it was, would it be cost prohibitive.

I think Corky has some good advice about the fact that we all should exercise caution online with our information. But, the fact is that in the cyber-world, if someone wants to get info about anyone, they can probably find a way to do so. I think this is something we all need to realize and take appropriate action.