Who do you ‘friend’ on social networks? IT security firm Sophos found that after creating a fake profile and sending out friend requests randomly to 200 Facebook members, 82 gave ‘Freddi’ access to their personal information like email addresses, birthday, address and school or work info.
Personally, I’m more willing to add ‘friends’ to networks like StumbleUpon which don’t give out personal information while I’m more inclined to pass up requests on Facebook or LinkedIn unless I know the person online or off.
Link: Facebook users pretty willing to add strangers as ‘friends’
Update: Andy Beal cautions on the real dangers of not knowing who your online friends are.
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[…] I like his focus on actually knowing (chatting with them via IM or meeting up with them at conferences) the people you befriend online rather than randomly asking complete strangers to be your friend. […]