Permanent Information
"Think of each piece of information as a drop of water. When a drop of water lands, it is either absorbed, evaporates, or becomes part of a body of water and is indistinguishable from any other drop. But this is not the case with online information.
Today each drop of information is collected into personal virtual buckets. The information rarely disappears; rather, it accumulates, slowly building a comprehensive picture of your identities and lives. Small details about your appearance, where you live, go to school and work, financial status, emotional vulnerabilities, and the lives of those close to us all add up.
Comments, actions, or images once posted online may stay long after you delete the material from your site or request a friend to delete your information from their site. You won’t know who else has downloaded what you wrote or what search engine crawled and stored a photo. You can’t know who else sees your comments and judges you by them, nor will you have the opportunity in most cases to explain."
Excerpt from: The Washington State Office of the Attorney General http://www.atg.wa.gov/internetsafety/teens.aspx
Today each drop of information is collected into personal virtual buckets. The information rarely disappears; rather, it accumulates, slowly building a comprehensive picture of your identities and lives. Small details about your appearance, where you live, go to school and work, financial status, emotional vulnerabilities, and the lives of those close to us all add up.
Comments, actions, or images once posted online may stay long after you delete the material from your site or request a friend to delete your information from their site. You won’t know who else has downloaded what you wrote or what search engine crawled and stored a photo. You can’t know who else sees your comments and judges you by them, nor will you have the opportunity in most cases to explain."
Excerpt from: The Washington State Office of the Attorney General http://www.atg.wa.gov/internetsafety/teens.aspx