DailyStrength Members Community Support Group

Yes anything that we can see on your profile can be seen on Google. Which is one reason why I keep all private stuff in Friends' only.
The only way to feel safe is to use a profile name that will not identify you and not post openly any pics or information that might identify you.

This keeps being raised at regular intervals on DS and maybe it is time for them to actually put a caveat about it on the registration page so that people who are signing in would know that they are seen on Google.
Many of us in the past have changed our names to keep that anonymity and like one friend once told me - do not put anything up on here that you would not want to have read int he local newspaper. Very good advice.

There is no way they will change it.

it's part of the philosphy that people can get support by typing their issues into google and it will return a suitable post from DS. They don't have to be members.

It also means that people can find DS.

Also DS's income is based on page views.

Many, many community sites are the same all over the net.


When you worry about every Tom, Dick and Harry seeing it outside, please remember that depression has 30,000 accounts. Therefore the number of Tom, Dick's and Harry's within DS (excluding the pospulartion of scammer) is hundreds of thousands.

So the "predators" are probably already here.

You need to be careful everywhere on the net and in the real world too.

I've been on DS for over 2 yrs and this subject comes up in various groups every few months. Hat & fish have given good info & advice.

I will add one more about journals. When you first write it ALWAYS LOCK it to either friends or just me. If you leave it open to everyone it WILL end up on google.

One thing that REALLY REALLY disturbs me is that even locked journals are referenced on DS home page. For example, say I write a journal & lock it to friends only. Then a friend makes a comment in that journal. The first couple of lines of that comment will show up on the home page under my friends tab. If my friend writes a journal and locks it to friends only, and I happen to be on in time to see it come up on the home page, it will say so-in-so wrote a journal entry xx minutes ago... followed by the first couple of lines of the locked journal.

I suspect this shows up on the home page in the everyone tab. The only good thing is that there is so much activity on DS that it's not on there for very long.

But still......I find it disturbing.

I have one other suggestion. If you have shared your first name w/your DS friends, ask them to not refer to you by your first name in posts, hugs or at least the first few lines of their comments in your journals. And honor others by doing the same.

I FIND THIS VERY DISTURBING! i GO TO THIS SITE FOR COMFORT. THIS NEWS IS NOT VERY COMFORTING. FEEL SCARED NOW

From the DS HELP/FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS page, available before signing up:

"Can I post personal information?
We ask members not to post email addresses, telephone numbers, or any other personal identification on DailyStrength."

"Is DailyStrength anonymous?
DailyStrength is designed to be completely anonymous. The only information that is required is for you to choose a member name that will be publicly visible. Any other informatin you provide is completely vountary. Please use discretion and common sense when providing your location, name or any other information that you post in your profile, journal or discussions."

From TERMS OF SERVICE:

"You are solely responsible for any and all Content that is posted by or through your Account on the Site, including any e-mail, and for your interactions with any Member, or any user of our Site that has not set up an Account ("Visitor")."

From PRIVACY POLICY:

"Do not reveal home addresses, phone numbers or anything else that you wouldn't want a stranger to have. Please be aware that all information (including photos or videos) that you post on public sections of the community and all information (excluding your e-mail address and your password) that is contained in your DailyStrength profile can be seen by every Member and Visitor to the Site."

"You should think carefully before disclosing any Personal Information in any Public Area. What you post may be seen, disclosed to, or collected by third parties, and may be used by others in ways we are unable to control or predict, including to contact you for unauthorized purposes."

Please remember two things:

1. When you google your DS user ID, be sure you are signed off DS, otherwise you WILL be able to see your own journals, even if they are locked.

2. When you google your DS user ID, you KNOW that ID. How many people not on DS (i.e. friends &/or strangers) surfing the internet know you by that ID?


Whenever I sign up for a site such as DS (which isn't very often), I open up a new free email account, using another free email account as my contact info. This is instead of using the email that I get w/my IP service. There are lots of free email services besides the most popular (hotmail, yahoo & gmail). All you have to do is google "best free email."

Having been hacked over a decade ago I take the view that I would only put on the computer, let alone the internet stuff that I am prepared to have read/seen by others.

So the reason why I appear open as in having pictures of myself is that I don't mind if someone is able to identify me. I have been much more circumspect in having pictures of my daughter on here, in fact I asked her permission before doing so.

I also run several blogs and I see in there that I need to allow google to be able to link to my pictures in google image search. Copyright and the resposibility(liability) for putting up the images remain with me.

Nothing is truly secure on the net unless it is specifically a secure site, like a bank. But then that is the same as the outside world. Your money is not safe left in your house but it is safe(r) in a bank.

THink about it this way, if you leave your stuff open here, any DS user can look at.

And anybody with internet access and a valid and functioning email address can get a DS account.

Combine the two, and you get the idea.

I do wish that DS would change things so that the default for privacy settings was either "Me only" or "Friends only". Well, that or had a more specific line item in the joining process that tells you what is what.

(If it helps, I was pretty upset myself when I found this out. But I'm not that interesting, so nobody from real life has ever found me here!)

Thank you all for your responses, I found them most interesting and have removed a lot of my personal information so that there is basically nothing there. I don't want to leave DS but am concerned now about these issues. Can anyone tell me how to get my username changed? I would be most grateful to find out, as the methods I have taken thus far have not seen any results. Thanks again every one.

"Can I change my member name?
Member names are attached to accounts, and may only be changed by DailyStrength personnel. If you have a concern about your member name, please write us."

http://www.dailystrength.org/help/...