No one can deny the benefits derived from social networking (people grouping online), where people meet different kind of individuals and eventually develop friendships and business relationships with them. However, with users disclosing personal information to websites, privacy protection is as important as the pleasure acquired from online social networking. Users of social networking services should be aware of viruses or data theft.

Each social networking site has its own privacy policy. For instance, Facebook’s privacy policy helps its subscribers understand how the website ‘collects and uses the personal information’ that they decide to disclose. As the customer’s access or use Facebook, they also agree to observe the privacy policy. The subscribers knowingly provide their personal information (i.e., name, e-mail address, gender, address, schools attended, and others) to Facebook, then the website uses the information that they collected. As Facebook visitors use the site, the website stores the information in a browser using session ID cookies to know that the user has logged in. (A cookie is a piece of data in the user’s computer that stores the information about the user.) As the user closes the session, the cookies are also terminated to secure the user’s privacy.

With this fast-paced age and with everyone wanting everything in an instant — even instant friends— people cannot deny the benefits of social networking. However, it is also necessary to equip oneself with the information regarding the websites’ privacy policy to make sure every personal detail is confidential.