The privacy thing was being discussed in another forum and one poster said no one could find out who he is. Another poster replied with the guy's partial home address, phone number, name or whatever, enough for the orig poster to know there was no privacy. I have two nephews who earn their living with computers and they will not allow any of their kids pictures posted on other families web sites. It's to dangerous. Can you imagine child's molester looking at the pictures of your innocent children, even if they didn't know how to find them.

Sorry, I didn't answer your question. I don't think he is nuts, just ignorant of how dangerous the internet can be.

Not really. I guess it would depend on the content, but just vacation pictures? No. (especially teenagers because a lot of them have a myspace and put their own pictures up on that). I have posted vacation pictures on myspace and I don't think it's a big deal unless there are identifying certain things (landmarks near their home or school, teams they play on in sports, names of school or groups, etc.) I would be bothered if it was my daughter in a bikini, of course. I don't think it's much different than him passing around his vacation photo album, as long as the pictures don't have inappropriate content and don't disclose personal information. I was sent a message "warning" me because I posted a picture of my kids when they were small, they are grown up now.

If it really bothers you, you can ask him to take them down or make them private so only his friend can see it, but he's likely to tell you it's none of your business.

I guess if the children are not happy with having their pictures up there, then they should be removed.

Everyone seems to use facebook, myspace, these days, even my mother-in-law sent me an email, the other day, inviting me to join her facebook account. She is 70 !

I don't like the idea. I would not allow my children to put their pictures up on the internet.

But, then on the other hand, I was watching a child play a violin, and that was fantastic.

We have to change with the times, I guess. Even though our initial reaction is not to like it !

It's got to be an awful feeling to think that some pervert is staring at your child's picture on the Internet.

It's got to be an awful feeling to think that some pervert is staring at your child's picture in the Yearbook.

It's got to be an awful feeling to think that some pervert is staring at your child in the grocery store.

Is there really such a big difference?

Yeah. Don't ever go to the park - Or to a public pool.

I wouldn't accuse your husband of doing anything cruel, or even nuts - if you have a preference, state it without drama.

Sometimes when a divorce is pending, we take hard positions on things to assert power -not saying that's what this is, but just be careful - pick your battles, and for the sake of the kids, keep those battles far and few between.

How many people can be looking at your child in the supermarket or in the park?

15?
20?
100?

How many people can be looking at your child on the internet?

I have to agree with jonesy.

You might approach him in a really low-key, concerned manner, about the safety factor, & let him process the possibilities.

I wish you the best.

Sweeby we do what we can do. There is a big difference in a yearbook, being out in the public and your pictures being posted on the internet. My niece has a family site, closed to the public and she posted pictures of my nephews kids pictures there, when he found out he asked her to remove them. I agree the age of the child makes a difference. what I posted above was about a grandmother posting pictures of her young grandkids in a forum like this. My memory is not as good as it used to be and this was a couple of years ago.....but the guy who found the other posters name and address used his IP address or what every you leave on the internet when you've been there. It was scary to me. My sister does prison ministries and I told her she could be putting herself at risked and she replied with, "they don't know where I live or my phone number. I did a search and found her name and address at 5 sites. You do what you have to...to protect yourself and those you love.

Well, maybe they had a wonderful vacation together and he wanted to share the pictures with family and friends. He probably saw no harm, and there probably is none.

Millions of people post pictures on millions of public sites and millions of people have no problems.

No, I don't think he is nuts, and I would not be bothered if my ex posted pictures of my children on the web...as long as he didn't state their names and addresses in the pictures.
When I was 15 I appeared on tv on a weekly quiz show...every week for 4 or 5 weeks. Only my first name was given. Granted that was years ago, but my very over protectiuve parents weren't concerned.
My grand daughter has appeared on a news program, my neighbor's daughter appeared on The Today show...first and last name and town she lived in...
No I would not be concerned.
Perhaps you are just a little jealous that you didn't see the pictures before they were posted? Perhaps just a little annoyed at the fun they had that you were not part of?
There are many things in life to be really bothered about, IMHO, this is not one of them.
Linda C

if he also posts their phone numbers and addresses or if children are in suggestive poses or if they are not fully closed (on the beach for example) then maybe it is too much. But there is nothing wrong with just vacation pictures by itself.

No, I don't think he is nuts. Just unthinking or unaware of what he is doing. Did he have your kids permission to post their faces on the website. If he didn't then he was wrong to do it. Teenagers are old enough to make up their own minds if they want their faces plastered on the web.
I don't post pictures of my kids on the web (and they are teens). No telling who may try and contact them. You don't need to know the kids full address or full name to find out where where they are from. When we found out that our kids where posting on My Space, Wayne showed them how pretty easy it was to find out our home address and the names of who else lived here just from their first name and birthdate. They no longer post on My Space. NancyLouise

What bothers me the most is that he did not tell the kids he was posting their pictures on the site. And they were upset when they found out. Our schools, along with the teachers, parents and even local police, have all been activley teaching the kids over the years about the safety of the net and one thing they have been drilled on is they should not post personal pictures and info. Lo and behold, their Dad posts their pictures along with his name and the name of the city he lives in. If you google my Ex you come up with many postings of his professional work so I have no idea why he plastered the kids on a website. I truly think he has lost his mind.

I don't think he's nuts. I just think it's an issue of being underprotective or overprotective.... I'm not saying you are being overprotective, I think the same as you and have never put pictures of my kids on line, but lots of people do it and think it's just fine. Go look at the Kitchen Table forum. People post pictures of their kids every time the kid takes a step or trys a new food and you could easily get their personal info if you wanted to-- just join a card swap. Some people just don't seem to care.

I'd tell your EX that you're not happy with the idea and hopefully he'll respect your decision and take them off and not post anymore.. but if he doesn't, I don't think there's much you can do about it. Now, our school also tells the kids not to post personal info, etc... but the school itself does post kid's pictures on the school website so go figure... but, generally, I think there's a big difference in letting a younger child be part of an open chat group and your EX posting pictures for his friends to see. Just try to explain the difference to your child.

I'm still not getting it... OK - Suggestive or provocative pictures of children certainly don't belong on the Internet. (Or anywhere!) But 'regular' pictures of 'regular' kids in family settings? And I understand that someone can find out your personal information pretty easily over the Internet. I guess many of you can find out who I am -- and that's OK -- I'm not hiding.

I remember reading a personal safety article that advised women traveling alone who experienced a car breakdown to leave their vehicles and hide in the bushes while waiting for help. Why? Because the odds of a bad guy hiding in some bush were much, much smaller than the odds of a bad guy trolling deserted roads looking for breakdown victims.

It's the idea that an ordinary picture of a family vacation posted on a typical photo-sharing website is somehow even remotely likely to trigger a terrible consequence that has me baffled. Yes, there are predators out there. But if you're a predator, why 'shop' Kodak EasyShare for photos of kids vacationing with their parents when you can 'shop' MySpace for unaccompanied young teens testing the waters and looking for adventure?

There's some risk in everything we do. I post online. I eat packaged foods. I still drive my car alone - sometimes even at night. I shake hands and hug friends, even during 'cold and flu season.' I let my child go into public bathrooms alone (but watch the door). I ride in airplanes and even speak to strangers. There are risks I take in my life -- but they're the price tag for living the kind of life I want to live. And I try to teach my children to be aware of and properly evaluate the risks they decide to take. Driving a car, having sex (with and without protection), drinking alcohol or taking drugs, riding in cars with friends who aren't paying enough attention to the road or whose abilities are compromised --

Seems to me the 'risk' Dad incurred was very, very, very small, and Carla's advice to talk to your kids about the difference between posting family vacation photos and provacative MySpace photos is where to go.

I don't know, I wouldn't think phedophiles would tape news segments to see kids, or buy up old yearbooks for pictures... but I could see them surfing the net looking for kids in vacation pictures (especially in swimsuits) to get their jollys.

I just think posting any personal info is an individual decision and that children aren't really old enough to make that decision themselves.. but if there's a chance they may not want info out there for whatever reason -- (which there obviously is considering the differing degrees of opinions on this matter) then a parent should not be posting info about them either. So, in other words let the kids decide for themselves when they are old enough to. I remember on The Kitchen Table forum someone was talking about a child who was severly depressed, seeing a psychiatrist or something, maybe even suicidal (I can't really recall)-- didn't use a name but, the person actually posted a picture of the 10 yr old to show how cute he was, etc ... now, that is just so wrong... anyone in his class could have seen his picture and info about him... Most other posters saw no problem with it, but thank goodness some one complained and the administrators yanked it. Adults may not think there are things in the pictures that could cause problems... but I'm just not so sure. Not even about safety reasons, but would you even like your child to take a picture of you at any given time and post it on line without your approval?

I just think adults really shouldn't be taking it upon themselves to make decisions for others that can't always be taken away later. Maybe Susie isn't gonna want pictures of her out on the net before she had her nose job. It's really a personal decision about posting any info or pictures on line, that should be made by an adult only for themselves only. Plus, there are ways to share pictures with friends and family only.

Now, can you do anything about it with you EX? Probably not. I would suggest a nice discussion, though. Not "oh my god, I can't believe what you did" -- or calling him "nuts" because that's probably just gonna backfire on you. Plus, so many people out there feel like he does, so I would guess he would think you are just as nuts for thinking the way you about it.

I think the main issue is, the pictures where put on the internet without the permission of the subject.

That is the real issue.

Where I live, it is now illegal to take pictures of children at school events. Like at the swimming carnival, or sports carnival. I cannot take a picture of my child doing well at these events.

This seems to be going to extremes, but it is, in element, a reaction to the inappropriate use of child images on the internet.

Its a bit crazy, and when I go to my local sports field and see my child running around, in my backwater of the world, it seems insane that I am legally not allowed to take a picture of him.

I have a lot of pictures uploaded onto my myspace of my kids. I've mainly done it FOR my kids. I have been uploading alot of other pictures lately of them as well as I have a lot of family members in other parts of the world that I've recently regained contact with. This is certainly easier than shipping them all the pictures for the past decade. If my kids were little I'd probably not do it. But my baby is 16 and posts her picture (not suggestively) on her own myspace.
I've never asked thier father if it was ok. I've never given him a second thought in the matter. Even if he did object, I'm positive it would have no effect.

I have pics of my kids on a public page for grandparents and for my ex to access. No names, no places, fully clothed.

Long ago when my daughter was a competitive gymnast I was part of a Yahoo group of gym parents. We posted pics of our girls. Of course they were wearing leotards and had muscled bodies and few were over 13. We discovered that our kids pics were being downloaded, posted, and discussed in another gymnastics Yahoo group who were NOT parents. They were not extremely overt but enough that it was obvious they were sharing and discussing our daughter's physiques for their personal pleasure. We made our images private. There were also shots taken at meets by these people and posted for discussion of body parts.

After that whenever I went to a large publicized regional meet I was always suspicious of men with cameras with telephoto lenses who didn't seem to be either parents or professional photographers on the job. Yuck.

You can't keep creeps from looking at your kids. My gymnast pics were high profile because of where they were postedÂon a site for gym parents. I doubt someone would go looking for YOUR kids. They might do a keyword search and hope to come up with something.

My 15 year old daughter has a Myspace page. I had her make it private. I am on her list of friends, yes I check in from time to time...

He's not nuts, but as you can tell from previous posts, some people just don't see a problem with it.

It's really not my thing, and I share my pictures on Wal-Mart's photo Web site because you can invite only your family and friends and then they can order prints if they'd like. I really like it for sharing photos with out of town relatives, especially of our visits to them. Other people can post pictures to your group as well, and it's great for sharing, and we all have the security that only who we invite (or Wal-Mart employees who print the pics) get to see them...not the whole world.

Maybe you could suggest something like that to him, but ultimately, I doubt you'll be able to force him to not do this, so I would suggest trying to catch flies with honey!!

I have a myspace with all kinds of pictures of my kids. But, it is also on private with just about every kind of block that can be. And, I also never ever put any of their names on the site. It is for my family and friends so they know my kids names anyone esle doesnt need to know... But with all of us so spread out it is nice to be able say hey look new pics of the kids doing this or that.

I would ask him to at least block random users from seeing the pictures there are always privacy protections on these sites... and that he not use their names. Otherwise I don't really see a problem with him showing off to his friends and family these are me and my kids on vaca.

BTW i have never heard of it being illegal to take pictures of your own kids at school events etc... it would be a cold day... before someone would tell me I can't capture those special moments of my kids.

We went to a water park, and my husband was taking pictures of the kids, and a park employee came up to him and told him no cameras or video recorders were allowed. My husband asked him why, and he responded that they had had a problem in the past with perverts taking pictures of and video taping other people's children in their swimsuits!! Of course, my husband gladly complied, but it's sad that it's such a sick world that we have to worry about these types of things!!

And, you know, I may be the only one that feels this way... but really are people just dying to see pictures of other people's lives? I mean what ever happened to those days when everyone would do the eye roll when the new mom would come towards them with 500 pictures of junior in every outfit he owns, or when people would have to run home when the neighbors brought out the slide projectors with pics from their lastest vacation. There comes a point where I see the people I love and have hard copies of pics to hang for those really close to me. I don't really need or want to see the pictures of all my friends' trips to Oregon or pics of the hotel my friend stayed at on her last bisiness trip. Yes, it's nice if grandma lives out of town to e-mail her some pictures of the kids, but I don't really have to see my cousin's dog, Fluffy, in before and after hair cut pictures. I think some people just really over do it with sharing personal family pictures.