Trust

So I’m blogging today about Trust, with a capital T. We all know that whatever you post on the internet, whether in a blog, messageboard, Yahoo or Google group or email isn’t guaranteed privacy. But there is an inherent trust you give the people or group you communicate with that your words will be kept to the forum they were intended for and that they will not be used against another person erroneously.

My trust was recently broken. Someone I would have called an internet friend posted words from a private email publicly. Now what I had written privately wasn’t anything that I am ashamed or worried to have public, but that isn’t the point. The private email was posted without my permission, without forewarning (or without notice afterwards, for that matter – I found it accidentally), and was used against another friend, although my words were in support of that person.

I’ll not engage in communication of any type with this person again. No matter how innocuous the conversation may seem, they have now broken a trust with me.

The really ironic part of this is that person once emailed me something very private that they need kept so. You would think they wouldn’t betray my trust this way, knowing the information I have. They really should count themselves lucky I’m not the kind of person who would use such information against them in retaliation. Another person might not do the same.

Anyway, just a reminder to all to never email or post anything you wouldn’t want forwarded elsewhere. You never know where it might end up.

Jennifer Ray
http://www.jenaray.com/