Facebook and Privacy.

I think I wrote on here about rock'n'roll Ralphs; rock'n'roll Ralphs is on Sunset Boulevard and Ralphs is one of the main supermarket chains here in Southern California.

When I go in there I usually go to the automatic checkout and use my 'Ralphs' card – by the way Ralphs is spelled without an apostrophe as a man called Ralphs started it; that's what they say or they might have invented him when they found that the sign writer at the first store had spelled it that way.

But I digress; when I use my Ralphs card – shouldn't it be Ralphs's card?? - a load of coupons come out of the machine. The machine knows it's me and knows what things I buy on a regular basis.

It give me coupons for other brands so most of the time so I throw them away.

But this got me thinking; Ralphs know what I buy there every week as it's on their system. What would happen of Ralphs was to sell this information to my healthcare insurance company and what if I bought a couple of bottles of whiskey there a week – or even whisky?? Wouldn't I be in danger of losing my benefit?

And not just whiskey – we are what we eat and we buy what we eat and I feel uncomfortable about broadcasting that to everybody; I'm a bit uncomfortable about letting the world see my DNA via this blog but I've got used to it. We have let Big Brother take over and with things like Facebook, MySpace and the like we are exposing ourselves to things we probably wouldn't want to if we actually knew the full details.

I have a Facebook page and my children periodically put photos on there of their activities with their children and it's great to see them but people actually put their ages on there, let their friends know when they are going away – helloooo the house is empty!! – and put all sorts of personal things on there.

The other day I received an e-mail from a friend of mine, Dave, in Wales with a link to a web page.

I went there and it was a link to a site selling Viagra!!

Dave sent an e-mail later and told me that Facebook went into his address book and sent e-mails to the people there – so who did I talk to about erectile dysfunction?

I don't have my correct date of birth on there as I was always suspicious about that and I have my year of birth on there as 1913!!! So what were they trying to do with the Viagra? Kill me?

I say be careful my friends in what you say on Facebook.

Just a short post today as it crossed my mind and in the true sense of Facebook - I am going to Porto's in Glendale for lunch; I love than Cuban sandwich.