I received the following e-mail from one of my members:

Hello,
Just fooling around with the computer and put my name in and it brought up when I wrote a note to XXX xxxx when he died on 10/12/xxxx. I'm not going to leave messages if everyone in the world can see them. I thought this was a safe site.

I suppose the question really is - how private IS this site, and can individual users set their own parameters?

Thanks,

I'm inferring this was done in your Message Forum. The Forum is not password protected, so yes anything posted there will be found by the search engines.

All you need to do is password protect the forum to prevent this.

(Same comment applies to all the pages that are not password protected - especially user profiles.)

No, it was a message that was posted to a deceased member on their "memory" page.

Hi Chris...

While I don't know the specific page you are referring to, the "In Memory" page at your site is viewable by all visitors. Under Edit Pages, you can choose to make that page viewable only by those who are registered and logged in (Check the Password box).

This will also block search engine spiders from gathering that information including your public comment about the deceased friend.

Same comment - memory page is not password protected, nor are the comments. (That's what I meant about "all pages that are not password protected".)

To keep search engines out of any of the pages you do not want to be "found/searched", they need to be password protected.

(John beat me to it)

Both John and Jack are correct. You need to password protect your "In Memory" page if you don't want people to see the comments that your classmates leave.

CC previously told me that it takes a few days for your unprotected info to get off the search sites, so be patient and wait for it to not be seen anymore.
Password protect all your pages -- this is for the privacy of your members.

I am glad that searches for class members leads searchers to our site. That is how we have grown as one classmate searches for another and finds our class site.

It's a guess but your member was probably logged in to the class website. He can see that information but if he logs out of the class website instead of just closing the window he won't be able to see that message.

Ok I did that, seems to work, EXCEPT for Yahoo, you can click on "Cached" and it will allow you access.

I agree. We also want some info out there so it will attract alumni non-members to the site. I very carefully choose what to password protect and what not to. i.e. music from our genre is not password protected but married names are. Also, I find that the 'private chat' is very private between two if you want it to be. Also, I have 2 co-administrators. So I created my e-mail lists between admin. by selecting 1 of them, 2 of them or 3 of us. They can do the same. It really helps when forming committees in a small school like ours (75 graduate girls in NYC).
Barbara

Chris Heston wrote:

Cached will be there for a days or a few weeks longer (including Google). Cached represents information stored by the search engines on their servers and is not really the actual site.

Barbara Ecker wrote:

I agree 100%. Opening up pages attracts interest - as in - what else it there! I prefer as much as possible to be available that does not release personal information.

For example, post earlier has locked down everything, including the Profiles page and used the missing classmates for this purpose - however - that goes contrary to the way CC is set up : below the Log In panel Join Here can't be done leading to confusion.

Privacy is only relevant where personal info is displayed. History of an era is not private, nor is the history of a school.