Microsoft Office 2010 has been out for several months now and has been accepted within the IT community as an acceptable replacement for older versions of MS Office. It has some great new features and over the next twelve to twenty-four months, Windows 7 and MS Office 2010 will be hitting offices around the globe as the next desktop platform. Is it possible that one of these new features has invaded your privacy?

So, what does Office 2010 have to do with social networks, and why should you care? Well, the answer is both simple and complicated all at the same time. The simple part is that Outlook 2010 includes an add-in called the Microsoft Outlook Social Connector. This connector allows you to provide Outlook 2010 with your login information for social networking sites that you belong to such as LinkedIn and Facebook. LinkedIn is a professional networking web site where you can keep track of business contacts and share information pertaining to your career. Facebook is a website where friends and family can connect and share information, most of it from your personal life. Once Outlook is “connected” through your social networking accounts, you will see the “People Pane” as you read email messages. In the People Pane you will see additional information about all of the people who were included in the email. This information includes items stored in Outlook such as meeting appointments and other email messages as well as information from each person’s social networking profile that you are allowed to view.

Sounds simple, right? And you are probably thinking, “What’s the big deal? If I don’t want to see this information, I just won’t turn on the Microsoft Outlook Social Connector.” Well, as promised, here comes the complicated part. What you see within Outlook is not what you should be concerned about. It’s what your business contacts might see about you that should concern you. Because LinkedIn’s primary purpose is for business, the information that is shared through the Microsoft Outlook Social Connector is probably not a concern, but you should take some time to make sure your LinkedIn profile is up to date and accurate. However, Facebook is quite different. Think about it for a second. Let’s say you use Facebook to keep up with family and friends. It’s a fun place to share photos and post witty comments for your “friends” to see. Often the information and pictures you share on Facebook are not necessarily things that you would want to share with people you communicate with at work. However, based on your Facebook privacy settings, certain information is available for public view, such as your “possibly not so professional looking” profile picture. Therefore, anyone you send email to (coworkers, bosses, customers, vendors, etc.) who has the Microsoft Outlook Social Connector setup on their computer will see your Facebook profile picture. And if your Facebook privacy settings allow “Everyone” access to your “wall”, then all of your “status updates” will be displayed for them within Outlook as well.

OK, so how can you control what others see when you send an email? The Microsoft Outlook Social Connector makes the connection by matching email addresses in an email message to email addresses used on the social networking sites. The simplest way to stop this connection from taking place is to not use your work email address on Facebook and to not use your personal email address for business. So all you need to do is create and use a personal email address that you would never use for work as your email address on Facebook. This will prevent your personal Facebook information from “tagging along” with an email message sent to a business colleague. Alternatively, if you prefer to continue using your work email address on Facebook, then you will need to review and modify your Facebook Privacy Settings to ensure that “Everyone” only has access to information that you don’t mind sharing with the world.

Like it or not, the world seems to get smaller everyday and things that used to be private are suddenly shared with everyone. Unfortunately, sometimes it is our own actions that make our private information public. As they say, “Knowledge is Power”, and you now have the knowledge to at least take control of this one tiny piece of the world..