What are some good limits for giving personal information on the Internet?

First off, don’t give out info about friends and family. Just don’t. If they want that info out,they’ll post it themselves.

Personally, I give very little in the way of hard facts. I definitely don’t give out info that may be used as a security question. I occasionally give my age, but sometimes leave it vague, like, “over 40”. I give regions where I grew up, but don’t name specific towns, just nearby ones. And I’ve been known to occasionally add a little noise to the signal by inserting misinformation.

Personally I think it is foolish to use other peoples’ real names on the Internet, most especially when your relationship to them is stated. I wouldn’t post photographs of family or friends.

@Adagio You bring up an interesting issue. See, many of the pictures of ourselves are with family and/or friends. Back in the old days, there would only be one copy of that picture in existence, and it was pretty easy to control who got to see it.

Flash forward through “The internet is a thing now!” to our current era where social media is pervasive and things change. Many people don’t have the computer savvy to properly configure their permissions, and often seem to think that the computer automagically knows what they mean. The result is that people wind up doing things like post pictures of them goofing around on their day off thinking only their friends will see it… and forgetting that their boss is on their Friends list.

When you are online, you may think it’s just you and your computer, but it isn’t. Even if we discount the actions of the NSA, site admins and ISPs monitoring network traffic and ignore hackers, you still don’t always who is “in the audience”. While PMs and e-mail are usually private, most other things are not. For instance, posting in a thread on Fluther puts your words in the public domain; anyone anywhere with an internet connection can read them should they so desire. The only real privacy you have online is that odds are nobody gives a rat’s ass about you.

Thing is, when you post pics of yourself with friends/family, you’re pulling them into the same lack of privacy. Sure, your buddy may avoid Facebook because they don’t want to make their lives public, but here you are posting pics of them doing epic bong hits between kegstands at a NAMBLA meeting and their little secret is out solely due to YOUR lack of discretion.

Here are my standard for what to give:
1. No real names allowed.
2. General locations (country, city) is fine, but only when you have stuck to the site long enough.
3. Gender is same as above.
4. Profession is fine, but no specific workplace allowed.
5. Info about family and friends should be kept as vague as possible, and only be given when necessary.

I once saw an experiment when random people were stopped on the street and asked question like which uni they went to and what is their hometown. People of course were refusing to provide such type of info to strangers on streets personally, however they easily had this data let’s say on Facebook or elsewhere. So I wouldn’t tell any personal info that I couldn’t tell a passer by on a street.

An important information is what you are giving the information to. If you are sure you are in a private chat with someone, that’s one thing. But anything I on a forum such as Flluther goes to the entire Internet and gets picked up by search engines.

For example, I just cut and pasted the first line of jerv’s first answer above into Google, and got a link to this thread. The implication is that if you write any info about yourself with any unique symbol about you, anyone can find that info by Googling the unique symbol you put in the same place.

Now imagine random crazy people and companies doing all sorts of annoying crap with this info. Foolish schools and companies and daters and crazy exes and others trying to snatch information about you by Googling your name.

Hello, There are so many ways to do it: know who you share information with; store and dispose of your personal information securely, especially your Social Security number; ask questions before deciding to share your personal information; and maintain appropriate security on your computers and other electronic devices.Limit what you carry. When you go out, take only the identification, credit, and debit cards you need. Leave your Social Security card at home. Make a copy of your Medicare card and black out all but the last four digits on the copy. Carry the copy with you unless you are going to use your card at the doctor’s office.Make sure you know who is getting your personal or financial information. Don’t give out personal information on the phone, through the mail or over the Internet unless you’ve initiated the contact or know who you’re dealing with. If a company that claims to have an account with you sends email asking for personal information, don’t click on links in the email. Instead, type the company name into your web browser, go to their site, and contact them through customer service. Or, call the customer service number listed on your account statement. Ask whether the company really sent a request.