Hi all,

I don't know if I'm just being paranoid (probably), but is anyone "worried" about posting photos or avatars on forums? I never really thought about it on here and have an avatar of myself posted, but my hubby took a really cool shot of my naked back and I was thinking about posting it on a mostly male workout forum that I post on and it got me to thinking. Why would I want to post that av on a workout forum and what might someone do with it? I think people can just click on your av and then save it on their computer, right?

What do ya'll think about it? Am I just being paranoid? My hubby has a facebook page and has pics of our kids on there. I'm paranoid about that too. I know most people looking at the pics have no malicious thoughts about doing something with the pics, but you never really know who's looking, ya know??

It may be paranoid, but I don't post pictures of my child on open forums. A few years ago I was on a parenting forum where a bunch of photos were lifted and ended up on a fetish site. When that happens, there's not a damn thing you can do about it. I also knew some women from a fashion forum who had their photos lifted and those ended up on a hair fetish site. That's just gross. And then I knew someone whose photo turned up in a mean Who Let The Dogs out youtube thing. Granted, none of these is really HURTING anyone but the first one, as a mother, oh but **** no. The second one is gross, and the third was just so mean. And all three tell me that people can and do misuse photos. You have to decide if that's something you're comfortable with or not.

Yeah, I thought about it. It does bother me a bit, but I find that when I can see pictures of what people look like (or something that's important to them), I feel like I am building a stronger connection to them. My reasons for being here are for support and encouragement with online friends that are going through the same things I am. So, the benefits outweighed the risks for me.

Being the object of some whacko's desire is a sensitive issue to me and I am working through it. In RL, I can't control what some idiot does with his camera phone if I am at the grocery store, or what he says to me. I can only live my life and focus on things that make me feel comfortable. I see the online photo "grabbing" as an extension of that. With that being said, I won't post pics of my children.

I didn't post one at first, but then decided to after seeing others do it and I hoped it would make me seem more approachable, more like an actual person and not just a faceless, faux-named cyber-entity. Not one person seemed to notice and no one commented though, so maybe it didn't work.

My photo is only in my profile where snoopers can't look. I did use it on Facebook though. I may change that.

We should be very careful. We had a new member innocently join with her real name, a picture of her family and the city she lived in. I looked up her phone number and called her. She was shocked!

We've also had incidents where diet pill companies have come here and snagged before/after pictures and used them in their advertisements.

I was contacted on my email by a guy who had seen my photo on here and wanted to chat. And to this day, he still emails me, despite me replying and telling him I had no wish to chat with him. He is a scourge. Maybe I was foolish to put my email on my profile? It's down now. In any case, on my profile theres a pic of me and my boyfriend so he's so rude to contact me! I'm furious about him. Did a google search on his email and I found him on other message boards trying to get people to chat with him.

I wish I felt comfortable posting my face, because I really do appreciate those who do it. There's just something nice about having a face to associate with someone you read and write to. But we all have different lives.

Not trying to scare anyone, but there are websites that compile "profiles" on you based on what they can find about you on the internet. It's amazing, because even though you may have your profiles "private", how private are they really?

Here are two that I know of:

www.spokeo.com
www.pipl.com

Both of these had my pictures linked with my personal information.

Not trying to scare anyone, but please be careful with how much information that you're willing to share. You never know who's watching and compiling information.

Thanks grneyedmustang. I guess that confirms my reluctance to put pics on the web.
Thanks everyone for your replies

This has me frightened now. There is no telling how much information I gave out about myself not even realizing it. I am going to be more careful. I found myself on one of the sites, but it listed me as male in my 40s. HA. HA. I'm a women and in my 20s. It also has my grandparents address instead of mine.

Do ya'll think facebook is safe? if you have it set to friends only? The problem I have with that though is that hubby has "friends" that he went to high school with that he knows absolutely nothing about now. They could be perverts/child molesters/ who knows what ??
I'm having a hard time convincing him that our kids' pictures should not be on there. He got rather irate with me over it

That's a VERY good question. I've noticed that even though mine are all set to private, if I do a general search on google or those sites mentioned above, they still come up.

It's very scary, I've even thought about getting rid of my facebook and myspace because of it. Not to mention, if you've given facebook apps (sorority life, mafia wars, Uno, farmville, yoville, etc.) "permissions" they are probably selling your information.

I do have photos on facebook but all my facebook friends are actual friends (or family) that I know. Everything is private and I don't tag anyone so if you're not one of my friends, you're not looking at my photos. I'm sure a friend could easily copy a photo but...why would they? Like I said, my list is actual friends not just random people I sort of know or met once or sat next to in summer camp one time.

You have a right to be paranoid, so, just keep any pic either anon or unidentifiable. A back isn't such a big issue (as long as it isn't a side shot), and if you don't link your name or self to your online id, then it should be ok.

However, some people on the male workout sight might like your back, maybe too much, so be prepared for the compliments.