MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Digg, LiverJournal – when you consider the number and variety of social networking sites that online users join today, it is no wonder why Internet marketers have used them as a target.

Years ago, it was only the personal or private e-mail addresses that you have which have become a target for these Internet marketers to 'scope out' your profile and send you an endless stream of promotional e-mail messages. Today, they have changed course and use the power and popularity of social networking sites instead to track the browsing or buying behaviour of online users.

Here, we will take a look at the most important things that you need to know about social networking sites, how they are able to identify your personal information and online behaviour, and whether you should see these as a threat to your privacy.

Should You See the Identification Capabilities of Social Networking Sites as a Threat to Your Privacy?

First, how can a social networking site actually learn about the other sites that you are browsing through or glean information about the other websites that you are visiting? As you may already know, social networking sites do store your name, e-mail address, birthday and other personal information once you become a member, create an account and personalize your profile.

The exact process occurs when you have accounts in social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. Although Facebook does have 'granular privacy controls' which allow individual profile holders to decide how much information they would like to share to the public – it could still be subject to abuse. More often than not, social networking sites work with their advertising partners to provide more targeted ads for the products or services that they are offering.

Without identifying just one social networking site in particular, there is a possibility that the owners of these popular networks are leaking your PII or Personally Identifiable Information to their partners. The 'leak' of information is made possible with the help of cookies or online logs which can be put together like pieces of a puzzle to determine your buying pattern on online behaviour.

But what if you don't want anybody who's a good enough researcher to immediately gain access to your photo, address, e-mail address and any other personal information which might put your privacy and safety at risk? It is a cause of concern in the first place because simply visiting a website for an organization similar to Alcoholics Anonymous might prove to be an embarrassing experience if the information ends up being pointed to you. Aside from possibly tracking the sites that you visited, profiling may also lead to other aspects of your life being intruded upon.

At the end of the day, it is up to you to be careful about putting your personal information out there – but it's also the responsibility of social networking sites to ensure that the private information of its members are not subject to abuse.

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