Tips on Privacy and Anonymity

Fellow DS Members,

We started DailyStrength in 2006 with the idea that with support and help from regular people, anyone can overcome any challenge life may bring. And over these years our site has grown in terms of features and membership -- almost 500,000 strong now!

One of the challenges of building a site like DS is serving such a diverse membership. The DS community is young and old, male and female, living in all corners of the globe. Besides these obvious differences, DS members are also diverse when it comes to their attitudes toward privacy and anonymity. It's because of this that over the years we've added many features to help members have some privacy and anonymity while still being able to get the most out of DailyStrength. We wanted to take the space here to bring everyone up-to-date with our privacy features, how they work, and some tips for preserving your anonymity -- if that's what concerns you.

Before we begin, we must say that we have found that some of the most satisfied DS members are those that have used the site to share their stories, successes, fears, and doubts with the rest of us. It's amazing that when you can put yourself out there the most, you can get the most in return.

Privacy at DailyStrength

Privacy starts with understanding the difference between public content and profile content. When you are on DS you can post to a discussion, comment on a member's journal entry, comment on an expert's article -- these are all public content, like saying something in a crowd. We provide no privacy controls for public content. Then there is also profile content: your journals, photos, and profile information -- all of the content that shows up on your profile page. This profile content, that you create and maintain, can all be protected via our privacy features. The only exception here is your username and avatar since those are used to identify you on the site in areas like our discussion boards -- hence, your username and avatar are public.

For members who want to restrict access to some or all of their profile content, we offer the following features:

Journal Privacy - for each journal entry you can choose which group of users can view: everyone, just friends, or just me.

Photo Privacy - for each photo upload you can choose which user group can view: everyone, just friends, or just me.

Profile Privacy - you can choose which user group can view your profile page and all profile content: everyone, DS members, just friends.

The definition of each user group is as follows:

Everyone - all members and visitors to DailyStrength 

DS Members - all signed-in DailyStrength members

Just Friends - only DailyStrength members on your friends list

Just Me - only you 

A Special Note About Google and Other Search Engines

One of the hottest privacy topics here concerns having the content you share with DS showing up in Google and other search engines. Profiles are not indexed by Google and other search engines. However, the content you post publicly (discussion posts, comments), is always available to Google and other search engines.

Specifically About Anonymity

Anonymity is a little different that privacy, and the two can easily be confused. If you want to be open and sharing, but don't want to 'link' your DS membership with your real-world self, you are looking to be anonymous. There are three very easy and simple steps to take if you want to maintain anonymity on DailyStrength:

1. Use a random username that doesn't include your name, location, age, or other distinguishable characteristic. If you are an existing member and want to change your username to something less identifying, make the request using our feedback form. Changing your username can take time (and sometimes may not be done), since we have to review all requests manually to deter abuse. And you can only change your username once.

2. Use a random photo as your avatar/profile photo. If you don't have a random photo, use one of our cool illustrated ones.

3. Don't post any personal information like your name, age, location, phone number, where you work, etc., or photos of yourself, family, or friends without privacy protection.

To Wrap Up

By using the right combination of privacy settings for yourself and being selective of the personal information you share, you should be able to find a level of privacy that makes you the most comfortable. That is what we strive for here at DailyStrength. If not, please let us know by filling out our feedback form.

Thanks much

TeamDS