Living in the cyberworld, as we all do these days, has its mega-pluses, but also creates new problems - for instance the trail of indelible stains on your character you might be exhibiting for the world at large to see. The Poorhouse has seen a few surveys now reporting that your prospective masters are researching your electronic records, even if you're not a wayward Tory-boy public figure. This is rather less dangerous than classic stalking the Poorhouse is sure must be so much easier to do these days, but still something that could cause severe life-problems.

One such survey came from Viadeo who, it must be said, might have a vested interest given one of their services is to "Discover the background, skills and interests of the people you work with". Nonetheless, according to results published earlier this year, around 20% of employers look up their job candidates on the Internet .

Of these, the (small) majority of 59% say it consciously influences the decision of whether to hire someone or not. Fully 25% of the relevant HR "decision makers" said they have actually refused to give a candidate a chance based on some bit of information they found about them online. Well, them or someone with the same name or a grudge against them anyway one assumes.

Stacy: The photo that ruined her careerOne rather famous, if extreme, example of this sort of thing happening was the case of Stacy Snyder. Studying teaching at Millersville University, she also made the "mistake" of having a public myspace page. This myspace page contained an image of her sipping out of a cup wearing a cute skull-and-crossbones hat. All good so far...except that the caption she had given the photograph was "drunken pirate". Shocks! Gasps! Horrors! Not exactly the most horrendous thing one would think, certainly not on myspace, but the University disagreed and, upon finding it, refused to give her the teaching degree she had been successfully working towards for four years. Yep, she was rated "competent" and even "superior" in almost every attribute but this picture alone was enough to make her fail her "professionalism" attribute and hence not get a teaching certificate, and hence never having a chance to work as a teacher. A photo of her, looking quite sober really, drinking something you can't see what is on her own time, when of legal age to drink, has - so far anyway - cost her the career future she'd wanted for years.

That is clearly, in the Poorhouse's eyes, an exceptionally unjust result but it shows what can happen even with the most innocent of pictures. And there are certainly no small amount of rather less innocent pictures of half-dressed wasted teenagers boasting about their heavy drugs usage around either. Apparently. In fact, rumour - that the Poorhouse just invented of course - has it that myspace was going to be called "I'muptonogood.com" before they realised you couldn't have apostrophes in web addresses.

Just one more story about social-networking-et-al. badness before we go. Again, massive injustice, but it acts as a warning.

Body Magic: stealing photos of 14-year-oldsTVX Films, as you might gather from the name, make pornographic DVDs. One such film is "Body Magic", which has on the cover a picture of a girl in a hat. This almost seems quite respectable for such a filth-ridden "Hustler's Highest Rated" feature, other than the picture was stolen, sans permission, from poor Lara Jade's deviantART account. Despite its slightly dubious name, deviantART is not a site in any way associated with porn (more for those into alternative art it seems), and specifically outlaws reuse of images without the artist's permission. The only difference between her image and the DVD cover is that TVX removed the copyright symbol and watermark from the image. To just add the extra sleaziness factor into this misappropriation-for-profit outrage, the photo promoting the extremely adult DVD is a self-portrait by the artist, of her aged 14.

When she contacted them, what do you think she got as a reply? A mortified reply from an apologetic employee not realising they stole a picture of a 14 year old to promote their commercial sex DVD? Erm, not exactly. Here's the owner of the company's thoughts on the subject after many other rather impolite and unhelpful replies, at first claiming that she was lying:

"I’M SURE BY THE END OF THE MONTH YOUR FACE WILL BE HISTORY. WE HAVE STOPPED SELLING THE DVD UNTIL COVER IS REPLACED. WE HAVE FURTHER CHECKED OUT YOUR NAME AND ITS NOT LIKE IT’S A HOUSE WHOLE NAME. ACTUALLY, REMOVING YOUR IMAGE WILL HELP IMPROVE THE SELL OF THE DVD….. SO FAR IT BOMBED.".

Unbelievable. Lawyers etc. are apparently not being over helpful so she's desperately seeking help on deviantART and Flickr if anyone has anything useful to tell her.