From LinkedIn profile peeping to blog surfing, nothing you do on the Web is a secret. (Nor “semi-private,” as the Mayor of Arlington, TN will tell you.) It’s not that Big Brother is spying on you, it’s that everywhere you go, your Internet browser leaves behind a trail.

A recent example: a White House staffer reads Suburban Turmoil and Lindsay Ferrier has the screen shots to prove it.

Is it cool and fabulous that a person inside the most powerful office in the world reads Lindsay’s blog? Um, totally! Did he for one minute think the author of the blog would ever know, much less write about said visit? Nope.

Know this: nearly all Web authors–including this one–check their Google Analytics and/or StatPress-type visitor logs. We’re curious about the number of folks who find our writing interesting, how often you come back, etc. It’s actually sort of an obsession akin to watching a Chia Pet grow.

We can’t see your name or street address, but we know your city and state. We can’t see the name of your company, but we usually can see the server upon which you surf (state/federal employees!). We can even see what search term you used to find us, what Website referred you, how long you hung around and what links you clicked on.

If knowing content managers are spying on your stats makes you feel a tad icky, I’m sorry I’ve made you feel uncomfortable. That said, you know how I feel about your Web wanderings: a healthy dose of caution is always a good thing.

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Drew and crew at Daily Axioms asks a great question and offers up a word of caution about displaying your personal information on the interwebs:

…have we become too comfortable with transparency? Are we ringing the dinner bell, ready to serve up our personal info? …what could a malicious person do with all of this easily accessible information?

To be honest, this is not something I started fretting over until I read someone’s Tweet about how they never use their real birthday when setting up their online accounts or profiles. Seems birthdays are a very easy way to hack into someone’s account. And when you think about what recently happened to Sarah Palin and Miley Cyrus, it does get a tad scary.

Lately I’ve been having more and more conversations to the score of “Yes, people can use what you put on the web against you” and “No, you don’t have share every detail of your life on Facebook, in fact, don’t.”

I take for granted that I (thanks to my husband) hear lots of stories about how the net can come back to bite you. So I’m cautious, if not obsessive, about what personal info, quotes and photos are out there bearing my name.

Again, blogger Drew says it quite well:

Now more than ever it is extremely important to be mindful of what kind of information we provide, and how we provide it. If we tweet our home address, that information will always be out there for people to find for years. Mistakes and slip-ups are very possible with the level of comfort many now feel online. I believe it is important that you are truthful and real with people you interact with online, but building online brand identity and equity doesn’t mean you have to risk your safety or future.

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