One thing that young people seem increasingly unaware of is that it is very difficult to delete anything from the Internet. This means that anything that is posted to a blog, chatroom or social networking space is archived somewhere and even if it is deleted it normally still exists in the hidden web.

As search engines such as Google become more powerful the hidden web is starting to become more penetrable and throw up all sorts of things from peoples’ pasts. Considering that more and more people are now Googling employees before offering them a job, this is something that young people need to be aware of as inappropriate use at a young age could seriously effect their career prospects later in life.

Don’t believe that it’s hard to delete anything from the Internet? Have a look at the Wayback Machine at the Internet Archive that stores old websites. You might be quite surprised.