Regardless of what you believe online reputation is important, and is something we should all take seriously as individuals, as a society, and as an online community. Yes, we have the right to our own personal information—past, present, and future—but we also hold a great deal of that responsibility at our own fingertips. We have the power of the Internet at any given day, time, and place, but we also have the power to choose what we share and what we don’t share.

The Internet has made our lives smaller. We are all a part of a digital “web” of social networks spun by technology. Our ability to pick up any kind of electronic device and “connect” with the rest of the world in the matter of seconds attests to the level of power we have at our fingertips, but with great power comes great responsibility. When the Internet became popular in the average household in the early to mid-90s, we were all like children on Christmas morning—excited to log on and hear AOL’s coined greeting “You’ve got mail”, via a dial-up signal. Our society was so consumed with our new “toy” that we really weren’t sure of how to handle it. Now, twenty years later, we face a number of challenges and controversies, such as cyber theft, identity theft, plagiarism, and even sharing and managing personal information.