The Internet Sourcing Community

Birthdate

Hello,
I'm new to Boolean Strings Network. I have noticed when I join groups, it seems necessary to list your birth date. I am curious as to why this seems to be a requirement to join. Perhaps this has been asked before? I notice we have to sign in for every group e.g. linkedin etc. but someone googled my name and said they saw a lot of my info there. Because I am a novice related to Social Networking, I'd like to know why do we have these passwords etc. if our info is visible on Google. I hope this does not sound like an ignorant question, but as I said I'm a novice related to how this all works.
I appreciate your assistance.

Regards,
Renee Mathis

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Permalink Reply by Irina Shamaeva on February 26, 2009 at 3:25pm

Renee,

Your birthdate is not visible and definitely can't be found by Google. It's just part of the ning environment where many social networks are hosted. (Ning has an optional feature to show members' profiles on their birthdays that we do not use here.)

The extent of a ning network visibility in Google is set up by network owners. Our Boolean network is visible, i.e. Google will index our forum and blog posts. I felt it would be useful for many. This was one of the reasons I felt the ning platform is better than our LinkedIn group that remains visible only for its members.

(I run workshops on another ning network that is set up to be completely private and concentrate on serving its members.)

Hope this helps,
Irina