For all the talk about privacy and security, it seems that a lot of people are downright sloppy when it comes to who they provide personal information.

A couple of prime examples this week where large numbers of unsuspecting or naive happily handed over their usernames and passwords to a third-party simply because the service looked cool.

First up was SocialMinder, which is offering a service that lets you get control of your GMail and LinkedIn contacts. To use it, you have to hand over usernames and passwords to an unknown company offering a beta service. Even worse, SocialMinder is using the information to spam your contacts, unless you realize what they are trying to do, and opt out.

Next is Twitterank, which I noticed because Louis Grey had a Twitter post about his ranking. To get a sense of where you stand in the Twittersphere, you have to give Twitterank your username and password.

ZDNet’s Oliver Marks has a post that “Twitterrank has no apparent purpose beyond a sketchy numerical rating, and there are rumors circulating on Twitter this afternoon that it is basically a fishing expedition”.

Twitterank suggested it needed the information due to issues with Twitter’s API, which is hard to believe given so many services play well with Twitter. Right now, Twitterank is down.

My advice if you used SocialMinder or Twitterank is changes you passwords NOW.

As well, it should be a wake-up call for everyone to be a lot more careful about sharing your personal information. It should also be a reminder that changing your passwords on a regular basis, and not using the same password for every online service is a good digital habit.

More: Louis Gray has a post about Twitterank, and how he’s not too concerned about people hacking into his Twitter account.

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