Privacy Maven

The president of Salisbury University, Janet Dudley-Eshbach, is enduring the consequences of posting photographs on her Facebook profile which, meant to be private, have become public:

The photos were a joke between family members, certainly not something for public consumption. But this week, Salisbury University’s president was learning that nothing is private when it’s posted on the Internet.

Janet Dudley-Eshbach, Salisbury‘s president, spent yesterday apologizing for two photos she had on a social-networking Web site, one of which showed her brandishing a stick before a Mexican man with a caption saying she had to “beat off the Mexicans because they were constantly flirting with my daughter.” The other photo of a male tapir, a pig-like animal, commented on the animal’s ample genitalia.

In a telephone interview yesterday, Dudley-Eshbach said the two pictures on her Facebook profile were taken on a vacation to Mexico and Central America with her daughter. She said she thought her page could be accessed only by family and friends, when it was actually open to the entire Facebook community in Salisbury, a town in Wicomico County on Maryland‘s Eastern Shore.

“I very much apologize for any offense that anyone may have taken who saw these pictures,” Dudley-Eshbach said. “I’m 54 years old, and here I thought I was trying to be up with the latest technology. I guess a little bit of knowledge could be a dangerous thing.”

She removed her profile from the Web site Monday after a local television station, WBOC, began inquiring about the photos. The station displayed the pictures on its Web site.

Dudley-Eshbach issued a statement which WBOC published on their Web site:

President Janet Dudley-Eshbach had a personal account on Facebook, which was not part of the official Salisbury University Web site. The photos in Facebook were from a family vacation in Mexico with her daughter and were meant to be shared only with family and close friends.

“My understanding was that, with my privacy settings in Facebook, my page could be viewed only by those to whom I granted access,” said President Dudley-Eshbach.

“Many of us are learning about the positives and negatives of public networking sites such as Facebook. I regret that some of these family vacation photos, with captions that were only intended to be humorous, were included on Facebook,” said President Dudley-Eshbach. “I did not intend for these photos to end up in the public domain, and I am grateful that this was brought to my attention. I sincerely apologize for any offense anyone may have taken.”

This incident underscores the pitfalls of publishing personal information on the Internet. Privacy Maven previously discussed a recent CNN article on the “sinister side” of social networking which addresses this very issue from a marketing perspective:

The information that we post about ourselves on the Web, called “digital litter” by technology experts, is a bonanza for fraudsters and marketing companies.

Details such as date of birth and where you work provide valuable clues for identity thieves, while status updates saying you are going on vacation could be tantamount to giving burglars the key to your house.

More information on your sexuality, religion, political leanings and favorite movies can provide a depth of detail to marketers that they previously could only dream of.

Issues of privacy and social networking sites are being addressed with some urgency by advocacy groups.

A soon to be added public search feature on Facebook will mean that user profiles can be found through search engines such as Yahoo and Google.

What was once a cozy world between friends (you had to join Facebook before you could access such information) is now available to anyone.

However, the release of personal information has consequences beyond being vulnerable to unsolicited marketing or identity thieves, as this present controversy with Janet Dudley-Eshbach’s Facebook profile illustrates. People must be mindful and aware of the consequences, both personal and professional, of posting information – “digital litter” – which, if made public, may cause controversy.