Last week, several of my Twitter friends kept sharing the same tweet about a new website.
They were excited and suggested their Twitter followers take a look at it, and potentially get involved.
After the fifth time I saw the same tweet, I finally checked the website myself.
The mission sounded interesting: sharing personal stories from people around the country.
So I did my due diligence, checking the background of the site, who created it, etc.
What I’ve written about in the past to build trust in your website.
But I couldn’t find anything on the website that gave me information about the people behind the site.
Their About page had no details.
Who were they?
I tweeted to the person from the website who wrote the original tweet. Explained I couldn’t find any background info.
And I received an immediate response.
I thanked him for the quick reply.
And suggested he add the information he shared with me to the website About page, that the information added trust and credibility.
His response was that the group of people who created the site only wanted to share the stories, that they didn’t expect credit.
I understood.
When I replied, I explained many people, including me, would want to know why we should trust our personal information with their site, when they wouldn’t tell us who they were.
He was quick to respond.
Fair point.
Less than two minutes later, their About page was updated with the information about the people who created the site.
Whoa, that was fast!
I thanked him for his quick response.
Do Your Homework Before Providing Info on Websites
You would never give out your personal info to a stranger who calls your phone, right? Someone you’ve never meant?
That’s the same attitude to have when you visit a website.
Before sharing your personal information online, find out who is behind it.
If no information can be found on their site and there isn’t any contact email or social media account to reach out to, don’t share your info.
As my friend Chris Wiegman says:
It’s about trust. Why would you trust anyone, much less a website, with any info on you?
Read the website:
- About page
- Privacy policy
- Terms of service
to find who is behind the website and how your information will be used or shared.
Stay Safe and Secure Online
You can find more tips about data privacy online at Stay Safe Online.
Also, everyone can participate in this year’s Data Privacy Day on January 28, 2017.
Find out why privacy is good for business and join me at the Twitter headquarter free livestream Data Privacy Day event on January 26, 2017.
What other suggestions do you have for protecting your data online?
