• The New York Times Magazine, Wednesday, July 21, 2010 2:26 PM

The New York Times Magazine gives Jeffrey Rosen, a law professor at George Washington University, nearly 7,000 words to consider how consumers should be living their lives in a world "where the Internet records everything and forgets nothing." From the British teen who was fired for complaining on Facebook, "I'm so totally bored!!" to the Canadian therapist who was bared from entering the States after a Web search unearthed his '60s L.S.D. experiments, the dangers of increasingly connected information networks are ever more obvious.

Rosen also suggests that most people are still unaware of the degree to which their online activity can impact their lives and livelihoods. According to a recent survey by Microsoft, 75% of U.S. recruiters and human-resource professionals report that their companies require them to do online research about candidates, and many use a range of sites when scrutinizing applicants -- "including search engines, social-networking sites, photo- and video-sharing sites, personal Web sites and blogs, Twitter and online-gaming sites," Rosen notes. What's more, 70% of U.S. recruiters report that they have rejected candidates because of information found online.

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