In this Internet-driven sharing age, it's tricky being a camera-happy parent.

Take, for example, a friend of mine. She's always been a social soul and has long had the habit of posting photos of her children on Flickr, the photo-sharing site, for others to see. Flickr is, like most social networking sites, based on the idea of building communities around shared interests. This means that, unless the owner has marked his or her photos as private, other users not only can see them, but also comment and add them to their collection of 'favorites' -- a sort of album of other people's photos.

And this is where my friend ran into problems. She was used to strangers commenting on her pictures. She welcomed it. But one day she found that a candid photo of her six-month old son receiving toilet training had been marked as 'favorite' by someone she didn't know. When she checked the person's album of favorites, she found her son's portrait among a host of adult-oriented photos and those of nude children. She was livid. 'The photos of nude children were not meant to be sexual, they are photos by proud parents, taking photos of their sons swimming naked on the beach, etc.,' she said.

She complained to Flickr, and the user in question has been removed. (A spokesman for Yahoo, the company behind Flickr, said he couldn't comment on specific cases. But he said that if members flag the company about something to review, employees will look at the profile of the user in question and take action, which might mean deleting the user's profile.)

Now my trusting friend is less trusting, limiting access to many of her photos on Flickr to friends and family. She's also warned all her Flickr friends, many of whom confessed to her they hadn't considered the implications of posting their photos. 'They take social networking Web sites for granted,' my friend says. 'I used to be like that too, but now there are too many people there.'

My friend is not alone. Geraly Unite-O'Day, a Chicago-based mother of two with roots in the Philippines, had been a Flickr user for more than a year before she spotted someone had 'favorited' some photos of her with her children, along with comments such as 'a beautiful woman and her beautiful daughter' and 'what a cutie.' But when Ms. Unite-O'Day looked at his profile she found his albums included photos of children blindfolded and women in various sexual poses. 'I was uncomfortable with our photos amongst those and his Flickr contacts,' she said in an email, 'So I blocked him.' Since then she has marked all her kids' photos on Flickr as private (so only her friends can see them) and has removed all their pictures from her blog. Others have gotten themselves organized. One Flickr group called 'Not OK With the Fakes' gathers information on how to stop people from copying their children's images. 'Some people have no problem seeing their images pop up on Orkut, MySpace, PhotoBucket and the like, but we do,' the group's home page proclaims. The group has 646 members.

And the problem is not just one of ensuring that your photos are marked private when you add them to a Web site like Flickr. Photos take on a life of their own once they're digital. Another friend who volunteers as a moderator on community message boards says that users forget that what feels like an intimate, safe environment to share thoughts and photos may also contain 'lurkers,' people who follow proceedings but don't participate. 'A lot of people get a sense of safe security when they go on a board,' my friend says. 'They think it's only the group that is there, so they prattle on and on.' Mothers use photos of their offspring as their 'buddy icon,' and proudly post pictures of their children, unaware that others may be watching. 'All it takes is a right- click and 'copy,'' my friend says.

So what should you do to protect pictures of your children getting into the wrong hands? The best advice is not to post any pictures of them online that they may be unhappy to see circulating when they're older. And don't post any photos of your children on any Web site unless you can be sure that all the people who can see it are people you feel comfortable with. Remember: The Internet is not the comfortable little world inside your computer, but a vast unpoliced city that favors the anonymous.

How can you find out if your children's photos have been used? It's not easy, unless you're technically savvy (check out one way of monitoring your Flickr feed here: www .loosewireblog.com/flickr.html). If you're really concerned, you may want to consider services like Kentucky-based ReputationDefender, which promises to 'defend you and your family's good name on the Internet' by rooting out all data about your family online and, if you want, to destroy 'all inaccurate, inappropriate, hurtful, and slanderous information about you and/or your child,' as its Web site puts it.

Its chief executive, Michael Fertik, says that the service searches for pictures using tags, labels, captions and text that are linked to any photos, as well as more complex searches, such as digging out the meta-data usually added to photos by cameras when the shots are taken. Photos often find their way outside the user's orbit, he says, but aren't usually leaked with malicious intent. 'It happens all the time,' he says, 'and usually doesn't start in malice but often starts in inadvertencies.'

If you use services like Flickr, then you should think very hard about each picture of your child you post. Consider your online album as the equivalent of leaving the treasured family album on a public bench for every passer-by to thumb through. Limit the number of people in your online group -- whether it's Flickr, MySpace or Facebook -- and remember that even then, photos still may leak out. Master the privacy features of the service that you use before you start uploading the family album.

You may want to consider photo-sharing Web sites with higher fences. EnjoyMyMedia (enjoymymedia.com), for example, takes a different approach by turning the computer folders where you store your photos into what it calls 'personal broadcasting channels' that not only take the hassle out of uploading photos but also restrict access to those family and friends to whom you have issued passwords. Boston-based CEO Keith Loris sees his service as the antithesis of the Web 2.0 mantra of 'share everything with everyone': 'I am not interested in my 15-year-old daughter's photos, videos, etc. appearing all over the Net,' he says. 'I want it to be really easy for my dad, college roommate, best friend, etc. to enjoy them, but I want it to be impossible for anyone else.'

This view resonates with another friend of mine, who found a simple headshot of his 1-year-old daughter had been 'favorited' by a stranger alongside headshots of dozens of other people. Where previously he posted lots of photos without restrictions so even the more technophobe members of his extended family could see them, now he's more cautious. 'I guess I'm distrustful of this person's site and intentions because of their anonymity,' he said, when I asked him why. 'Who are they? Why are they doing this? It could be all innocent. It might not be. Who knows these days on the Internet?'

His conclusion: 'With children, and in particular your own children, the feeling is that you should err on the side of caution.'

現(xiàn)在社會已經(jīng)進入了一個由互聯(lián)網(wǎng)帶動的全面“共享”時代，不過，那些喜歡給孩子拍照并搗鼓到網(wǎng)上的家長們還真得多長幾個心眼兒。

看看我一個朋友的例子吧。她是個社交活躍分子，而且很長時間以來一直喜歡把孩子的照片貼到Flickr網(wǎng)站上“秀”給大家看。Flickr是一個照片分享網(wǎng)站，它和大多數(shù)社交網(wǎng)站一樣，也是基于為擁有共同興趣的人構建社區(qū)這樣的想法而創(chuàng)建的。在它的網(wǎng)站上，除非照片擁有者將照片標注為私有，否則，其他用戶不僅可以看到它們，而且還可以發(fā)表評論、或者將它們收藏到自己的“最愛”里面。

不過，正是這一點讓我的這位朋友遇到了麻煩。她早就習慣了有不認識的人對自己的照片發(fā)表評論，而且還歡迎他們這么做。不過有一天她發(fā)現(xiàn)，自己6個月大的兒子光著小屁股學習用馬桶的“走光”照被某一個陌生人收藏到“我的最愛”里了。于是她看了一下這個人的收藏夾，結果發(fā)現(xiàn)，里面除了兒子的照片外，還有很多成人照片，以及其他兒童的裸體照片。她嗡地一下頭都大了。她說，父母給孩子們拍的那些裸體照片──比如在海邊光著身子撲騰的樣子──絲毫沒有色情意味，他們記錄了父母們看著孩子長大的那份驕傲；但現(xiàn)在卻被一些人拿來跟成人照片放在了一起。

隨后她向Flickr反映了情況，那個用戶后來被清除了。（Flickr母公司雅虎公司的發(fā)言人表示，他不會對具體個案發(fā)表評論，不過他表示，如果有網(wǎng)站用戶反映情況，他們會檢查被投訴用戶的資料并采取必要行動，可能會刪除被投訴方的資料。）

廣告我這位朋友本來樂于相信別人，但她現(xiàn)在則加強了警惕。她對很多照片都加了限制，只允許朋友和家人瀏覽。她還以自己的例子提醒在Flickr上的所有朋友，他們中有很多人都承認，以前從沒考慮過在這里貼照片可能帶來的問題。我這位朋友說：“他們都想當然地認為社交網(wǎng)站不會有什么問題。我自己以前也這么想，但是現(xiàn)在網(wǎng)上人太多了，難免魚龍混雜。”

有我朋友這樣遭遇的不止一個。來自菲律賓的奧黛(Geraly Unite-O'Day)是兩個孩子的母親，現(xiàn)住在芝加哥。有一年多的時間她一直是Flickr的用戶。有一天她發(fā)現(xiàn)，她跟孩子們在一起的照片被別人收到“我的最愛”里面，還注上了諸如“美女和她的漂亮女兒”“美人兒”之類的評語。她隨后又看到收藏者的相冊里還有被蒙住眼的孩子和擺出各種性感姿態(tài)的女子的照片。“我看到自己的照片和這樣一些照片放在一起感到很不舒服”，奧黛在電子郵件中說，“因此我把他加到了封殺名單里”。在那之后，她把孩子的所有照片都加了“私有”標簽、不讓朋友之外的人看到，還從博客里刪除了孩子們的照片。在這個問題上，其他人也組織起來并采取了行動。Flickr上面有一個名叫“決不容忍騙子”(Not OK With the Fakes)的群體，它們搜集各種可以防止別人拷貝孩子照片的辦法。它在主頁上表示：有些人對自己孩子的照片出現(xiàn)在Orkut、MySpace、PhotoBucket等網(wǎng)站并不介意，但我們要說“不”。目前，這個網(wǎng)上組織已有646名成員了。

當你把照片放到像Flickr這樣的網(wǎng)站上之后，問題就不是將照片標注成“私有”那么簡單了。數(shù)碼格式的照片擁有自己的生命力。我還有一位朋友義務擔任社區(qū)留言板的管理員，他說，用戶們忘了這樣一個事實：在網(wǎng)上這樣一個感覺似乎很親密、很安全的分享照片和思想的環(huán)境里或許也潛伏著一些別有用心的人，他們一直在“潛水”狀態(tài)中觀察著別人的一舉一動，但自己并不參與。他指出，許多人進到一個話題組之后就被安全感蒙蔽了，以為那里都是“自己人”，于是就無所顧忌地聊個不停。媽媽們將孩子們的照片當做自己的網(wǎng)絡圖標，而且滿心驕傲地希望貼出來給大家看，她們意識不到或許有其他人在看著這一切。這些人只需輕點鼠標，然后按“復制”就能為所欲為了。

那么，為防止孩子的照片落到別有用心的人手里，你該怎么做呢？最好的辦法就是不要把那種等孩子們長大后若在公開場合看到會感到不高興的照片掛到網(wǎng)上。還有，不要把孩子任何一張照片貼到任何一個網(wǎng)站里，除非你能保證所有能看到照片的人都不是自己討厭的家伙。記住：互聯(lián)網(wǎng)并非濃縮在你電腦里的美好世界，相反，它就像一個無人管制的大都市，匿名者在里面如魚得水。

怎樣才能知道你孩子的照片是否已經(jīng)被別人盜用了呢？這可不容易，除非你在電腦技術方面很有一手。如果你確實擔心，你可以考慮求助ReputationDefender 這家設在肯塔基州的公司在其網(wǎng)站上承諾，它能搜索到你家人在網(wǎng)上的所有數(shù)據(jù)，而且，如果你需要，它能銷毀所有關于你和你孩子的不準確的、不恰當?shù)摹⒂泻Φ幕蛘u謗性的信息，從而捍衛(wèi)你和家人在網(wǎng)上的好名聲。

該公司首席執(zhí)行長邁克爾•福提克(Michael Fertik)表示，這項服務能借助任何與照片有關的標注、作者名、標題和文字來搜索照片，還能實現(xiàn)更復雜的搜索，比如能找到照片拍攝時由相機生成的元資料等。他說，照片經(jīng)常會脫離所有者的控制，但它們通常不是出于惡意才被泄露的。福提克說，這種事每時每刻都在發(fā)生，雖然往往不是出自惡意，但和粗心逃不開干系。

如果你使用Flickr一類的網(wǎng)站，那么無論貼出孩子的哪張照片，你都應該再三斟酌。可以把網(wǎng)上影集想像成被你留在公共長椅上的一本珍貴的家庭相簿──每個路過的人都可能過來翻看一番。不論是Flickr，還是MySpace或者Facebook，你都應該限制群落里的成員數(shù)量，并且記住就算這樣，照片仍有可能被泄露出去。在上傳家人照片之前，要充分了解網(wǎng)站的隱私保護政策。

你也許想考慮一下其他一些防范性比較強的網(wǎng)站。比如，EnjoyMyMedia (enjoymymedia.com)，它就采取了不同的做法，把你存儲照片的電腦文件夾變成一個“個人播放頻道”，這樣一來，不僅在上傳照片時簡化了程序，而且只有從你那里得到了密碼的家人或朋友才能看到你的照片。公司常駐波士頓的首席執(zhí)行長凱斯•羅瑞斯(Keith Loris)表示，該公司的服務和Web 2.0技術所倡導的“和所有人分享一切”的概念完全背道而馳。他說：“我不想讓我15歲女兒的照片、視頻在網(wǎng)上隨處可見。我希望我的父親、同學，還有最好的朋友能夠很容易地看到它們，但對其他人就不行。”

這個想法正與我另一位朋友不謀而合。他發(fā)現(xiàn)自己1歲女兒的大頭照出現(xiàn)在一個陌生人的收藏夾里，里面還有幾十張別人的頭像。以前他曾經(jīng)貼過很多照片都沒有設定限制條件，這樣是為了讓那些對電腦操作一竅不通的家庭成員也能看到照片。但現(xiàn)在他警惕多了。他說，我覺得自己對這個人的網(wǎng)站很不信任，對那些不知名的人也多了些警覺。我問他為什么，他說：他們是誰？為什么要這么做？這種行為可能是沒有惡意的，但也可能不是。現(xiàn)在的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)，誰能說的好呢？

最后他說：“對孩子、特別是自己的孩子，我感覺怎么小心都不為過。”