Today students are using the Internet for more and more of their daily needs, but for everything the Internet gives, it doesn’t give privacy.

A long time ago, people met new friends in person, they saw classmates on campus and they kept their diaries on paper, hidden away and private.

Today, millions of people meet friends on MySpace, see classmates on Facebook and write their most intimate diary entries on Livejournal.

So much of our private life has gone online – yet privacy doesn’t exist on the Internet. Your personal photos can be viewed by anyone online from Kentucky to Karbala. Your journal entry is being held in a server halfway across the world.

Even things you’ve posted as “private” can be easily hacked into. Security online is paltry at best.

Perhaps it’s because of the casual nature of communication on- line that people mistakenly think that the Internet is private. They don’t think that the e-mails they write or photos they post will come back to haunt them, because it’s just the Internet.

The De Anza College baseball players who were suspended, wisely took down their MySpace sites, but one was given a disappointing surprise two weeks ago when he discovered the truly public nature of his postings on Facebook. However, the harsh reality is, these sites aren’t the poster’s private property. When users sign up for an account on Facebook, by agreeing to the “Terms of Use,” they give up the rights to whatever they post.

The days of online communication being a simple sideshow are over.

Accusations made over the Internet are considered the same as if they were printed on paper – the law doesn’t make a distinction.

Avo Makdessian, a former aide of ex-Mayor of San Jose Ron Gonzales, is currently being taken to court for libelous comments sent via e-mail saying local business owners Rich De La Rosa, Dennis Fong and Jose Mendoza were connected to illegal activities.

Former Florida Representative Mark Foley found out the hard way that sexual harassment over the Internet can destroy a political career just as easily as a saved phone message or a pinch on the behind.

The Internet is still new, and perhaps our views of it have not yet fully matured. But we need to catch up – the Internet is not private, it never was.

Watch what you post.