Privacy Concerns: Delete Button and Hacker Attacks

The December 14th Fast Company article "Delete Button for the Internet: Tool Removes Personal Info from Google, Facebook" by Austin Carr reports on a new service from Abine.com that removes posted items from the web.

I found it very ironic that, a few hours after I read this post, my gmail account was hacked and everyone in my database was sent emails hawking prescription drugs.

An online friend emailed me: "I'm guessing you already know but you got hacked big time."



I sure did.

And here's something you should do right now:



Log in to your Google account by going to google.com/accounts. Under "Dashboard" click on "View data stored with this account" and you will be asked to log in again. Then under "Account" click on "Websites authorized to access the account" and click on "revoke access" to any websites that you do not know or that should not have access to your account.

My business partner checked for me and, when she saw an unfamiliar website had access to my Google contacts, she quickly revoked access. (Although, as she herself said, she should have first written down what website this was before revoking access.)

In addition to this, one rule to minimize the risk of being hacked is NOT to use the same password for everything, especially on major sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Google. I don't use just one password, but still there are a lot of sites on which I use the same password.

Another rule is to have a reasonably complex password – and definitely do not use your birthday or current street address. (I don't.)

Then remember to practice vigilance when typing in a password in a public place. (Who saw the December 15th episode of the television show"Human Target" in which the math savant could remember a password by watching someone type in the code just once?)

And when it comes to privacy in general, only put on the web the photos and personal information that you can live with the entire world knowing. No matter what the privacy controls supposedly are – your information can probably be made public.

Read the Fast Company article now.

And for ideas about how to participate on social media to stay top of mind with your target markets (provided you use strong passwords for these accounts), get our Miller Mosaic Power Marketing FREE report "5 Tips for Staying Top of Mind With Your Prospective Target Markets"

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