{"id":14011,"date":"2013-12-14T09:00:25","date_gmt":"2013-12-14T14:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/?p=14011"},"modified":"2021-10-19T06:51:06","modified_gmt":"2021-10-19T10:51:06","slug":"digital-erasers-the-next-big-money-maker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webhostinggeeks.com\/blog\/digital-erasers-the-next-big-money-maker\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Erasers: The Next Big Money Maker"},"content":{"rendered":"

If I were making investments, I\u2019d invest heavily in tattoo removal<\/a>. No one has figured out a perfect removal process, but when someone does it will make millions. And robotexting<\/a>: when is someone going to invent a robotexting app that will text my wife\/mother\/brother so I don\u2019t have to? \u201cSure, Honey! I\u2019d be happy to run to the store for you. Txt me the list.\u201d I don\u2019t have time to be polite via text: robotexting better get here soon before my relationships fall apart. Digital erasers<\/a>? Now\u00a0there’s<\/em> an investment: every kid growing up five years ago to now and far into the future is going to need one when they start applying for jobs<\/a> or graduate school. What lucky programmer is going to write the code that will crawl the entire Internet, deleting embarrassing content for 20-somethings who were imprudent teens? That software will easily make millions, maybe even billions\u2026.<\/p>\n

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Digital erasers weren\u2019t even a thought in people\u2019s minds until the absolute folly and imprudence of youth appeared drunken<\/a>, sometimes illegal<\/a> and certainly offensive<\/a>\u00a0in places like Facebook<\/a>, Twitter and every social media outlet teens frequent. It used to be when you were young and acted stupid, it didn\u2019t go beyond your local town, neighborhood or school district. If you got an unsavory reputation, the problem could be solved by moving away, thus wiping the slate clean. Very few of us have unsullied memories of our teen years: what are the teenage years for anyway, if not for carousing, rebelling and testing limits?<\/p>\n

But what if all the folly of your youth followed you into your job search<\/a>? Studies show that 91% of employers<\/a> use social networking sites to screen potential employees. What if it showed up on your applications for graduate school<\/a> or housing? Online indiscretions and bad reputations are not easy to shake\u2014certainly not as easy to leave behind as an offline and physically, not electronically, situated troubled teenage period.<\/p>\n

Whatever!<\/em>\u00a0It\u2019s apparent that no matter how many teens ruin their reputations (or get arrested<\/a>!)\u00a0by posting drunken\/nude\/foolish photos of themselves on the Internet, others do not take warning or see any cause for caution.<\/p>\n

\"Texting\"<\/a>

By Alton via Wikimedia Commons<\/p><\/div>\n

Understanding this problem, California enacted the Digital Eraser Law<\/a>\u00a0(SB 586) in September. It\u2019s a nice effort, with a noble goal: to protect minors by prohibiting online merchants of adult-only goods from advertising to minors and by making it mandatory for any \u201cInternet Web site, online service, online application, or mobile application\u201d containing a minor\u2019s information to remove that information at the request of the minor or any third party. In regular language, that means children in California have a right to delete\u00a0any information they have published on the Internet, the right to digitally erase any content they have created as children.<\/p>\n

Great idea, California, but practically impossible to pull off. \u00a0\u201cEmbarrassing photos spread virally, and internet archives automatically create copies of nearly every piece of information on the web,\u201d TechCrunch<\/a> reminds us. This is problem #1: even though teens have the right to erase content on sites where they originally posted the content, they may not know how many copies of the content exist on other sites.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom my reading, the second someone reposts anything you share, you lose control of it,\u201d the Daily Mail<\/a> reminds us. Once a picture is re-posted on another site, the person who originally posted it is not the only owner of the information and therefore cannot delete it. SnapChat<\/a> is a popular app with teens and the assumption is that pictures sent via SnapChat disappear, but in reality<\/a> those pictures can be captured by the receiver and live on forever once re-posted on the Internet.\u00a0The illusion of protection<\/a> via automatic\u00a0picture deletion\u00a0is just that: an illusion.<\/p>\n

Education about the reach of online posts<\/a> and information is another problem: teens and children have limited, if any, knowledge of copyright and certainly don\u2019t imagine the ways in which their information\/posts can be re-posted and used by people unknown to them. Privacy settings<\/a>? Why should they care?<\/p>\n

According to one study by the Pew Research Center<\/a>, of the teens active online:<\/p>\n