The other day, as I strolled past my roommate’s bedroom, I casually asked her “what are you doing?”, and she casually replied to me “just creeping Facebook”. I continued walking, thinking nothing of it, as this is a usual occurrence, with all of my roommates, my friends, my family members and even myself. “Creeping” Facebook, and other social networking sites such as Myspace, blogs, and even some aspects of YouTube has so completely integrated itself into our society, that the use of the verb “creeping” is so commonly accepted, although the meaning behind it is actually quite alarming.

The truth is, that because of these new websites, and the amount of personal information that people are willing to disclose on them, privacy is almost non-existent in today’s media crazy society. The fact that I know that Christine, my ex-neighbour from my kindergarten days is now pregnant with her second child, and has been dating her boyfriend Matt, for 2 years and 3 months, is actually quite alarming, considering the fact that I have not spoken to her in 9 years.

People are posting photos of themselves, publicly updating all 368 Facebook friends that they have a very painful urinary tract infection, and advertising their relationship status and problems on a daily basis, without realizing that 296 of those 368 Facebook friends, are people that they would rather not possess this information.

In his book The Future of the Internet and How to Stop it, Peter Zittrain coins the term “Privacy 2.0″ to refer to privacy issues on the Internet today. He comments that “Facebook offers tools to label the photographs one submits and to indicate what groups of people can and cannot see them. Once a photo is copied beyond the Facebook environment, however, these attributes are lost”.

What people fail to realize is that those 296 Facebook friends that they do not necessarily know by any other means than the Internet, now have the power to exploit any information found on your Facebook or Myspace page. This Internet era in which we are living must immediately learn the art of privacy settings and self restraint, before the verb “to creep Facebook” makes itself an official dictionary entry.