Ever received an email from a friend and before reading it you had to scroll down past 60 of their other closest friends' email addresses? 

It's annoying for the readers, but experts say it's also a possible first-step to much more serious problems, such as identity theft. 

By the time that email does the rounds there could be a few hundred names and email addresses attached to the original message.That's a potential goldmine for spammers and phishers who can use that information - and your name - to make an approach to your friends and seem more credible.

There are endless other ways that information could be damaging to you and your contacts, simply because you never know who the next person to receive and send that email trail will be.  On the other hand it's very easy to create or forward emails to multiple recipients without giving anyone's details away.

First of all, you can delete previous recipients if you're forwarding a message on.  

When you create a new message, instead of entering your intended recipients in the "To" line, add them to the BCC (or blind carbon copy) field.  

Most email programs have a BCC field available somewhere in the "View" drop down menu. Contacts entered here will be invisible to each other or anyone else who later receives the message. 

If your email program won't allow you to send while the "To" field is empty, just add your own name (and ask for it to be removed if the email gets forwarded again).  

Teaching your children how to hide their friends and contacts email addresses isn't just good netiquette, it's a vital step in protecting their own privacy too.

A recent research paper titled "Eight Friends is Enough", published by Cambridge University, suggests knowing eight of a person's contacts could be enough to generate much more personal information about that person. 

The paper was specifically concerned about social network site Facebook's public listings. A public listing is the information that anyone, whether they're a Facebook member or not, can find by doing a simple Google search on your name. 

Say Joe Public is a Facebook member. You Google Joe's name and one of the search results is from the Facebook site.

Unless Joe has been savvy with the privacy settings on his Facebook account, the search will reveal Joe's photo, eight of his friend's names and a list of his favourite organisations, causes and products.  

That's a lot of information about Joe (which anyone with a computer can access), and according to the Cambridge University research it's also the start of finding out a lot more about his friends and their relationships, too.

Facebook is a public site and unless you are extremely careful with your privacy settings your life can quickly become equally public for eternity (That includes the good, the bad and the ugly, which is important for teenagers with cameras to remember!)  

Here's how to limit what people see about you on Facebook:  

1. In your Facebook profile, run your mouse over 'Settings' in the top right hand corner of the blue bar. There are account, privacy and application settings here.
2. Click on 'Privacy'; here you can block anyone who is giving you trouble and control who can see what on your profile, who can search for you and what people can see about you on their news feed.
3. Under "Search Visibility - Who can find you on Facebook?" select "Only Friends" or "My Networks and Friends".
4. Click "Save Changes".

Following the same steps as above and getting into "Search Visibility", you can turn off your public search listing by simply unchecking the box next to the phrase:  "Create a public search listing for me and submit it for search engine indexing".

Then do a quick Google search of your name and see what still comes up.

Just to be clear, Facebook is a public site. It owns the content you create, including photos and videos.

If you decide to close your Facebook account down the track, remember to delete all your information and photos etc first. What stays up, stays up forever!

None of this is to say Facebook or emails or any technology for that matter is to be avoided but the more you understand the technology you and your children are using the more you can relax and enjoy it.