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" Cliff Lampe, assistant professor of information at the University of Michigan's School of Information, says those who abandon Facebook are doing so as the result of a single, uncomfortable event like a difficult interaction with an ex. A smaller segment of the population is discontinuing membership as a result of privacy concerns."

It is hard to imagine holding a university-level class today in which students do not engage with the web or social media in one form or another, whether by using Google search, bookmarking or sharing an article, taking an online survey, posting or commenting on a blog, or using e-mail or text messaging. So, what rules should we, as instructors, follow to ensure no legal or Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) issues arise?

"Whether you are a student or not, everyone is actively releasing and building collections of  data. We are, in a sense, walking end-users that are compiling personal databases, and as more information is generated, maintaining privacy in a big data world becomes even more crucial."

"By outsourcing digital education services -- by partnering with a massive open online course provider, for example -- Hilton and Wheeler argue that universities "shift control and economic power to entities outside of academia that develop and own technologies and services at scale." As a result, "long held faculty and student rights regarding control of intellectual property and privacy might no longer be decided in the academy.""

"Yik Yak is the Wild West of anonymous social apps," said Danielle Keats Citron, a law professor at University of Maryland and the author of "Hate Crimes in Cyberspace." "It is being increasingly used by young people in a really intimidating and destructive way." Continue reading the main story Colleges are largely powerless to deal with the havoc Yik Yak is wreaking. The app's privacy policy prevents schools from identifying users without a subpoena, court order or search warrant, or an emergency request from a law-enforcement official with a compelling claim of imminent harm.

""I didn't let my child loose on the streets without teaching her about traffic and looking both ways. Similarly, I don't like to see otherwise well-educated people loose in digital culture without knowing something about what makes a small-world network work or why a portfolio of weak ties is important. Networks particularly affect privacy and reputation-the places where our private lives intersect or collide with public knowledge, whether or not we know what to do about it.""

"What sex education used to be, it's now the `technology talk' we have to have with our kids," said Rebecca Levey, a mother of 10-year-old twin daughters who runs a tween video review site called KidzVuz.com and blogs about technology and educations issues.

putting the ATF's problems with tracing guns aside, it could still help agents track you down a lot faster than they could before - along with finding out everything else about you.

"What rights have users granted to online services such as Facebook, Twitter and Google? Does posting content on these networks mean forfeiting your ownership of your photos, for example? A photo posted on Twitter remains the intellectual property of the user but Twitter's terms give the company "a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense)". In practice, that gives Twitter almost total control over the image and the ability to do just about anything with it. The company claims the right to use, modify or transmit it your photo any way."

Apps from Google and Apple could help third parties create profiles on children, says an FTC report that found a number of troubling practices.

"The unpopularity of personal data encryption isn't a problem in itself but a symptom of a bigger issue: The increasingly social, distributed and proscriptive nature of computing means that if you want to use the latest software and services you simply cannot keep your personal data to yourself."

"Personal details of about six million people have been inadvertently exposed by a bug in Facebook's data archive."

"The problem with the internet is that nothing is temporary. "

"Phones are ringing off the hook for the four-man IT department at the Wichita County courthouse after hundreds of employees discovered Monday their Internet use during work hours is being monitored."

""Why not shame and embarrass others, especially the vulnerable, if there are no negative consequences? If people had a stronger sense that online abuse would be followed by legal or social sanctions, then we surely would have less of it," according to Danielle Keats Citron, law professor at the University of Maryland and author of 2014's Hate Crimes in Cyberspace."

" I thought I would outline that range of public and private interactions in my classes, starting with the very most public and then progressing step by step to the most private: email. Although I have made a lot of changes to the content and procedures and technology in my courses over the past ten years, I have really not changed this balance of public and private - somehow or other, I blundered into a configuration of public and private that worked perfectly for me right from the start of my online teaching career."

Wolfram Alpha, the "computational knowledge engine" that quietly handles a large number of queries from Apple's Siri, launched a new feature today that allows you to quickly get an overview of all your data on Facebook. The new report, says Wolfram CEO Stephen Wolfram, expands Wolfram Alpha's "powers of analysis to give you all sorts of personal analytics." The company plans to expand these reports with new features over time, but they already give you a pretty deep look at your Facebook habits.