Campus police departments have been trolling social networking sites such as Facebook for years in an effort to reduce illegal activities on-campus such as alcohol use and campus building-climbing. As word of this trolling has come out, students have strongly objected and some of the departments, including the campus police department at Princeton University, now only use Facebook as a tool in specific investigations. Yet some feel that they shouldn't be using Facebook and other social networking sites at all in an effort to clamp down on crime or do background checking on students.

Many students feel that outsiders – professors, campus authorities, employers, etc. – should not visit student sites such as Facebook. The analogy that is drawn is that of the family reunion where an older, uncool uncle hangs around a bit too long with the younger folks. Call it the creepiness factor. This creepiness gets worse when the visitors who are hanging around are law enforcement authorities who are checking to see if you've participated in any illegal activities. But students need to understand that outsiders will visit their sites and that those visits can have negative consequences. You may be accused of commiting a crime. You may be denied an employment opportunity. You may be suspended from school.

The bottom line: if you don't want a potential admissions officer at a college or graduate school seeing the information, don't post it on-line anywhere. If you don't want a potential future employer, girlfriend, boyfriend, spouse, in-law, or anyone else seeing the information, don't post it on-line anywhere. If you do, you'll likely find that it will be a lot harder to correct the damage than it is getting a tattoo removed.