Your kids: What people see online

If you're a little concerned about what your child is saying about herself online - say, in her blog or Web site - it might help to show her this Washington Post piece. In it, writer Robert MacMillan describes a situation that led to a friend having embarrassing information about herself turn up in the first result of any Google search of her name. She cringed when she thought about "prospective employers 'Googling' her" and finding "a concise and prominent summary of her dating proclivities." Of course, if your daughter's smart, she'll tell you her full name is nowhere to be found in her blog, but it wouldn't hurt to be sure. If she's really young and into blogging, this might be helpful: "A dad on kids' blogs: How father & daughter worked through the issues." MacMillan goes on to say that a company called ZoomInfo is making a business of bumping those embarrassing tidbits down in Google's search results; see the piece to find out how they're doing that. For more serious examples of what kids are exposing about themselves online, see this item in my newsletter. See USATODAY's "Prying eyes are everywhere" for a round-up of current online monitoring, spying, and background-checking tools and behaviors.