In 1999, Sun Microsystems co-founder Scott McNealy made headlines as he famously declared, “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.” Although many objected to his statement at the time, a decade later, I’m obliged to agree.

Still, looking at where we are today, I can’t help but think that such a statement was rather premature. It’s somewhat difficult to remember (most of us were in grade school at the time), but what we refer to as the internet now barely even existed then. Twitter, for example, was not established until 2006. There was no Facebook at the time — it launched in February of 2004. Its predecessor, MySpace, was launched just half a year earlier. Friendster launched in 2002. Wikipedia wasn’t founded until 2001. And neither Livejournal nor Blogger were launched until several months after McNealy’s statement.

Now that social media exists, it has an incredible amount of influence over our lives. (Perhaps not more than the influence of the president of the United States, as some told one of our reporters [see “Word on the Street”], but still, a considerable amount.) As illustrated by this week’s feature (see “Personal Branding Through Social Networking”), there are more ways than ever before to post personal information online — whether it is you posting about yourself, or others about you.

In last month’s debacle over Facebook’s updated terms of service, users panicked over the idea of having even less control over their private data. (Basically, Facebook deleted a couple important lines about users having the right to remove their own data from the site.) Facing public outcry, Facebook reverted to the previous terms of service. Our data is (relatively) safe for now, but I guarantee this isn’t the last we’ll see of this. When it comes to posting compromising information about yourself, you’re probably better off erring on the side of paranoia.

And as far as other people posting information about you? With almost 90 percent of college students on Facebook alone, maintaining even a modicum of privacy can mean facing off against incredibly formidable opponents — your friends. Perhaps trying to prevent any personal information from appearing online is not the best approach. Instead, the best we can hope for is to control the message.