1. You should not sign things unless you understand them. Consumers need to learn not to hit “I agree”, and instead simply walk away, and that is ultimately the message that vendors will hear. What a mess the legal system would be if you can’t tell the difference between a legally binding contract, and one that results in “oh but i didn’t know what i was signing”. It would backlog the judicial system forever if anybody could just claim that they didn’t know what they were doing as a legal defense.

2. Domestic wiretapping. First off, the only thing that domestic wiretapping does is shortcuts the red-tape involved in pursuing a suspect. Police have always wiretapped suspects. Although there is a new kind of warentless wiretapping, it doesn’t mean that police have no boundaries. In fact, you are probably LESS likely to get wiretapped if you are up front and volunteer verifiable facts about yourself online.

3. Visibility of social networking: It is up to you, but linkedin is a valuable marketing tool to some people. In fact it makes spam less spammy because people have to pay to request introductions on linkedin, therefore it is very targeted. The email sender at least knows something about me and makes a human decision about whether or not it’s worth paying money to contact me. This is based on QUALIFIED information, whereas spam is UNQUALIFIED.

In conclusion, there are many things we should look out for, and we should be careful in venturing into a new social medium. But if you’re going to voice a concern, at least be more articulate about what it is that you are afraid of. Although not every type of social networking is for everybody, I personally see more value-add than value-subtract when it comes to social networking, as long as everybody networks responsibly.