Online privacy tips for real estate agents

Online Privacy Tips for Real Estate Agents

With the economy continuing to improve, new opportunities are finally opening up for real estate agents who lost business during the housing crisis. To capitalize on this shift, many real estate agents are giving themselves a more public face on the Web. This great marketing tool, however, can have not-so-great effects on agents’ privacy — and might even cost them clients.

If you’re a real estate agent who’s looking to protect your electronic privacy, follow these online privacy tips for real estate agents to ensure that your Web behavior is getting the right kind of attention.

1. Protect your privacy on social media websites.

Social media has blossomed as a tool for real estate agents in recent years. Many agents use websites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn to sell their services or draw buyers’ attention to available properties. With all these benefits it’s no wonder that a 2009 National Association of Realtors survey found a whopping 84 percent of respondents using some kind of social media to assist their realty work.

Social media is a double-edged sword: If you say the wrong thing, it’s easy for a Google search to find it, connected to your name. Luckily it’s easy to safeguard your website privacy with a little editing.

Make sure that your social media profiles are clean and professional, without references to controversial topics like sex, partying or politics. The same goes double for your photos. Even seemingly innocent tweets or status updates can cause you to lose clients; for example, if you post numerous updates cheering on your favorite sports team, a die-hard fan of the rival team might be less inclined to do business with you.

Not sure if you’ve  been completely clear? Have a trusted friend or colleague review your social media profiles — and offer to do the same for him or her.

If you just can’t contemplate losing your freedom of speech on Facebook, you can also adjust Facebook’s privacy settings to make sure that only “friends” can see your wall posts and photos.

2. Beware the dangers of people-finder websites.

When potential clients get a referral from a friend or family member, or when prospective buyers find one of your listings, they’re likely to head straight to the same place: Google. If you haven’t checked your Google search results lately, you might be surprised to find your name appearing on websites for which you never registered, including Spokeo, Rapleaf and PrivateEye.

These websites can offer information that you’d never give out in public, such as your home address, personal phone number, date of birth, age and even your personal credit score. Most of these websites use publicly available information, ranging from phone book listings to government-agency data — meaning they’re fair game as far as privacy laws go.

If you’ve found your name on one of these people-search websites, you’re probably wondering how you can remove the references. The answer is simple, if a bit time consuming. Below are links to the opt-out forms for each of the major people-search websites:

• Spokeo

• PeopleSmart (requires verification by mail)

• PrivateEye

• Rapleaf

In addition, be sure to Google all of the following: any alternative spellings of your name, your full name (if you go by a nickname) and if you’re married, your maiden name. These searches can yield other potential threats that you might want to clear up.  This is one of the important online privacy tips for real estate agents.

3. Save the cookies for the open house.

Cookies aren’t just a delicious treat — when it comes to the Internet, they’re a major impediment to maintaining your privacy. Whenever you visit a website, these little files are downloaded to your computer’s hard disk. Though they can’t damage your computer itself, they can often steal lots of information about your browsing habits, shopping preferences and other information you don’t want to make known to clients.

Most browsers, including Internet Explorer and Firefox, can help you find and clean up any cookies that you don’t recognize. Make sure to consider these online privacy tips for real estate agents in developing your practice.

Allie Pape is a freelance writer based in San Francisco. She has also written for 7×7 magazine and CitySearch.