INTERNET AND TEXTING RULES FOR COUPLES

The Internet can pose a significant threat to any relationship if misused. The Internet has led to a dramatic increase in use of pornography, which can become habitual, even addictive behavior that will have a negative impact on your own relationship with your partner. In addition, the Internet allows individuals to make contact with strangers and encourages inappropriate intimacy. It can lead to both emotional and physical infidelity.

Because some people view online relationships as harmless, they engage in behavior they would never consider in a face-to-face relationship. Many marriages and relationships have broken up when one member of a couple discovers that his/her partner has been involved in a relationship online or regularly visits pornographic or other inappropriate websites.

Here are a set of rules that will help each couple avoid the trauma that comes from discovering hidden relationships and porn use on the computer.

11 ways to prevent Facebook stalking

It's not just kids who have to protect themselves from abuse on Facebook and MySpace. These rules are just as crucial for adults. the last thing you want in your life is a stalker. Liesl Muller, a social media consultant, offers the following advice about safe social media use:

It is very important to keep your passwords safe and not to share them with anyone.

Don’t befriend just anyone. A rule of thumb is to only befriend people you know in real life. Use Facebook as an extension of your existing circle of friends.

What you share electronically stays in cyberspace forever, therefore don’t share or post anything you will not feel comfortable with. Ask yourself: will you be comfortable if your headmaster or a potential employer reads it? And potential employers do look at your Facebook page.

A Facebook Photo Cost Me My Internship

By katya gordeeva | Yahoo! Contributor Network

If you are seeking employment, you might want to make sure your Facebook profile doesn't reveal any unflattering information about yourself. Nowadays, many companies check out potential employees' Facebook profiles before hiring them. If your profile picture is of you playing a game of beer bong at a party, it's probably best for you to take it down. Some employers are going as far as asking job candidates to provide their Facebook usernames and passwords. I have had my own social media privacy issues while searching for jobs.

A couple of years ago, I heavily searched for public relations internships. I was almost finished with college and wanted to add more experience to my resume. I must have applied for over 30 internships, but one stood out to me. It was a public relations firm in Chicago that specialized in hotels and restaurants. I was so excited when I got invited for an interview with the firm. I bought a business suit and read interview tips online beforehand; I knew I was prepared for the interview.

My Social Media Accounts Were Mined for Sales Leads

By Adam Wisely | Yahoo! Contributor Network

I was laid off in 2008 from a company where I had worked for almost three years. After the layoff, I applied for a job at a company that I had heard was looking for customer service people.

I filled out the application for the job online and within two days I was called in for an interview. The first thing I noticed that seemed to be a little strange was that I had to fill out another application once I got there. I filled it out and handed it back to the receptionist. She turned around with another paper and stated that I needed to fill it out as well in order to get the interview.

I remember thinking that this was weird, but I needed the job. I had never seen anything like this, though. The page that asked if I had a Twitter account, a Facebook account, or a Myspace account. It then asked for passwords to these accounts. I thought to myself, this really is unusual, so I wrote on the paper that I would be willing to discuss these accounts in the interview but I was not going to just give them my passwords.

I knew this was an invasion of my personal privacy, so I told the receptionist that I would discuss this information in the interview, but that I was not going to fill that section out. She said that she would have to see if they still wanted to interview me.

As I sat there waiting I recall thinking that this might not be the right job for me, but I decided to give it a shot to see how it went. I was informed that I was still going to be interviewed, because I did not refuse to not talk about my Twitter, Facebook, and Myspace accounts.

I was called into the hiring manager's office and was told to have a seat. I was first asked about the type of work I was seeking. I was then asked why I thought I would be a good fit for the company. I explained my answers and then answered some more questions. Towards the end of the interview I was asked if I would give them my social media account passwords.

I asked them why they needed them. The hiring manager said that they would need them to process leads for me to sell knives. I thought that was strange but possibly an effective way to sell their product and generate some new income, so I decided to give them the passwords. They looked up my account and saw that most of my associates on them live in completely different states than I do.

This prompted the manager to turn to me and ask me how I intend to sell these people these knives. I told the hiring manager that I would not be selling them any knives. The reason for that, of course, is that they live in completely different states. He told me that he was not going to be able to hire me and I thought that was the end of it.

That was until a couple days later when I got a phone call from my mom asking me why I sent her a nasty message on Facebook. I told my mom that it was not me and that asked her what the message said. She said that it stated that she was making it hard to sell her any knives since she was in another state. She asked me why I would be trying to sell her knives to begin with.

I explained the situation and ended up having to change my account and reconnect with everybody from the old account. This is how I first learned of the horrors involved in social media sites and some jobs that ask for this information. I will never again give my passwords to another company, job or no job

*Note: This was written by a Yahoo! contributor. Do you have a career story that you'd like to share? Sign up with the Yahoo! Contributor Network to start publishing your own finance articles.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/first-person-social-media-accounts-were-mined-sales-212200378.html

I Won't Give Any Potential Employer My Facebook Password

By Janet Hunt | Yahoo! Contributor Network              

COMMENTARY | According to a recent news report by Bloomberg news, Facebook itself is discouraging employers from asking potential employees to reveal their Facebook passwords as a condition for employment. This comes in response to growing scrutiny over a growing trend of employers asking employees and potential employees to reveal their Facebook logins and passwords as a condition of employment.

The American Civil Liberties Union has joined Facebook in the outcry against this practice. According to Facebook Chief Privacy Officer, Erin Egan, Facebook is thinking of asking policy makers to take legal action against those engaged in this practice. They go on further to say that it is a violation of its Statement of Rights and Responsibilities to share a Facebook password.

When Does Social Recruiting Become Social Sleuthing?

By Lindsay Olson | U.S.News & World Report LP

We know that employers are sometimes checking your Facebook or Twitter to verify if you're hire-worthy. But what should you do if you're asked for your login information during a job interview? It's become a reality, as employers realize that they can learn a lot about job candidates through their social media profiles. And since many people set their profiles to private, where only those they approve can view intimate details, some employers may want access to your account.

"Asking a candidate to open up their private profile and network for you to see is not social recruiting," says Dan Finnigan, chief executive officer for the social recruiting software platform company Jobvite. "It is the old-fashioned behavior of a bully. And it is not the appropriate behavior of a hiring manager or recruiting professional? If this becomes standard, people will only revert to a more generic definition of themselves, an almost fake online facade, extinguishing the value of this emerging new social world."

Most people are outraged at the idea of employers essentially snooping through their virtual home. After all, you go to Facebook to let down your hair and talk about your personal life. Even if you've got nothing to hide, it still feels like an invasion of privacy. And while the Department of Justice recognizes that allowing someone else to log-in under your account violates terms of service, there are no laws--to date--that prosecute employers who are doing so.

In a press release, Facebook's Chief Privacy Officer for Policy Erin Egan stated that this practice "undermines the privacy expectations and the security of both the user and the user's friends. It also potentially exposes the employer who seeks this access to unanticipated legal liability."

This is potentially a ticking time bomb: Employers who practice "social sleuthing," which is using a social media site like Facebook to glean personal information about a prospective employee, are violating Facebook's company values.

So what should you do if an employer asks for your login info? You always have the option to refuse to hand over your password, though it may jeopardize your chances of getting the job. But consider whether you want to work for a company that thinks nothing of personal privacy.

Before letting them log-in to your account, suggest accepting their friendship so they can view your profile. Or guide them to your LinkedIn profile, which is designed to showcase your professional side. It's better to do this than allow them access to your account. Sad as it is, filtering what you post to your social profiles might be your best bet for getting the job you want.

Lindsay Olson is a founding partner and public relations recruiter with Paradigm Staffing and Hoojobs.com, a niche job board for public relations, communications, and social media jobs. She blogs at LindsayOlson.com, where she discusses recruiting and job search issues.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/does-social-recruiting-become-social-131143373.html;

Job Applicant Privacy And Social Media

By Lewis Humphries | Investopedia

As we enter into a brand new financial year, there appears to be little chance of stopping the unprecedented growth of social media . By the close of 2011, Facebook had amassed 845 million active users worldwide, which showed a significant increase of 45 million in just three months since the previous financial quarter. Twitter was another social media website that continued to break new ground during 2011, as it was reported in September that the site had reached 100 million active global users.

However, these figures do not tell the whole story when it comes to social media and the significant challenges that they are facing. To begin with, the market is beginning to reach the point of saturation, as Facebook prepares for a continued fall in its monthly user growth, while only 27% of global Twitter accounts were reported as being active between September 1st and November 30th last year. More significant than this, however, was the recent news that a New York job seeker was asked to provide his Facebook username and password for inspection during an interview. This raised further concerns over the misuse of social media, and the protection of each individual's privacy rights.

E-Recruitment and Social Media Screening: Taking a Step Too Far While the use of social media to screen and hire applicants is nothing new, historically this has only been applied to public accounts that were without privacy restrictions. When e-recruitment rose in conjunction with increased social media usage in 2011, it became common practice for employersto review their applicants' public profiles as part of the hiring process, while the use of professional networking site LinkedIn allowed candidates to be recruited directly through social media interaction

With more than 60% of all U.S. and U.K. Internet users active on Facebook, social media screening emerged as an insightful and time-effective method of confirming a candidate's suitability for a role. With no way of accessing an applicant's private account, employers were forced to either befriend their potential employee or conduct a more traditional evaluation of their attributes. However, now that public and private employers are looking to take a more direct and invasive approach, worried job seekers are facing up to an impossible choice that compromises either their opportunity to work or their privacy.

The Reaction: The Stance of Facebook and Individual Users
Privacy issues are nothing new with Facebook, which was criticized as being little more than a global photo identification database by research carried out in 2011. Despite this, they have taken a firm stance on this latest issue, by threatening to take legal action against any employers who force users to compromise their own online privacy. The sharing of sensitive account information violates the core principles of the Facebook user agreement, and could potentially end in lawsuits and counter lawsuits between account holders, employers and even the social media giants themselves.

One of the main issues is the content that a Facebook password affords to employers . Not only would they be able to view an applicant's profile and timeline, but they would also be able to view private messages, conversations and deeply personal information about individual users and their family. If this information is accessed in the course of a failed application, the employer could be accused of discriminatory action. Aside from this, there is the wider issue that job seekers do not have the leverage that they need in a competitive employment market, with the result that many may agree to privacy violations under duress.

The Future for Facebook and Social Media as a Whole
U.S. lawmakers are also looking to take a stand on this issue, with the aim of protecting social media account holders from these invasive screenings. Senator Blumenthal has already began to develop legislation that opposes the practice of requesting job seekers' social media account details, which could well be introduced into the U.S. senate in the near future. A California state senator, LeLand Yee, is looking to create similar legislation for his own state, declaring the practice as unnecessary, unconstitutional and a gross invasion of privacy in the process.

Without swift action from lawmakers across the globe or Facebook themselves, the social media giant and its contemporaries could see their numbers of active users drop significantly over the next 12 months. After all, there have been reports of Facebook experiencing reduced growth in individual countries since 2010, and with more than 845 million active users, there is a danger that Facebook and similar social media outlets will soon reach their saturation points. Any significant threat to user and job seeker privacy could hinder growth further, and even encourage existing users to deactivate their accounts.

The Bottom Line
The reaction of U.S. lawmakers, Facebook users and the social media giant themselves suggest that there is growing concern for the freedom and privacy of job applicants with social media accounts. These personal rights are core to the fabric of any civilized nation, and no employer or organization should ever have the right to access the personal information of applicants and infringe on their privacy. Social media sites have a duty to protect users against the misuse of their personal information. Failure to uphold that duty may result in a significant reduction in the number of existing social media users, as well as diminished growth and a tarnished reputation for these websites.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/job-applicant-privacy-social-media-171806450.html;

50 Ways to Improve Your Finances in 2012

http://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/articles/2011/12/21/50-ways-to-improve-your-finances-in-2012