MySpace or Yours? The Ethical Dilemma of Graduate Students' Personal Lives on the Internet

The booming popularity of the Internet, and particularly increasing use of personal Web sites, social networking sites, and blogging, raises questions regarding the ethical use of psychology graduate students' personal online information for academic purposes. Given rising controversies such as use of such information to screen applicants, I refer to the principles and standards of the Ethics Code of the American Psychological Association (2002) to examine ethical concerns associated with graduate students' personal information on the Internet, namely, the protection of privacy, use of informed consent, consideration of autonomy, and implications for students' clinical work. Finally, I make several recommendations for graduate training faculty and graduate students as they consider placing and using information on and from the Internet.