The week in your words: Facebook, IT RIP and Safari stealth

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By Stuart Turton

Posted on 28 Mar 2008 at 14:31

In a week which saw a children's coalition demand employers be banned from trawling Facebook, predictions sound over the death of the IT department, and Apple blasted for stealth Safari installations, we take a look back to see what our readers have made of it all.

Children's group demands employer Facebook ban

First up this week, a coalition of children's charities is seeking to ban employers from researching prospective employees on Facebook. Apparently they don't think a perpetual record of our booze-filled teenage rock-and-roll antics should have a bearing on future employment - unless of course, you're applying to be a booze-filled rock-and-roll star, in which case, carry on.

The story divided our readers into two very distinct camps. We'll start with the "stupid people should be ushered onto a small island and pelted with stones" camp and its official spokesperson davidbryant4.

"If people are stupid enough to put a lot of personal information online then it's their own fault!"

Unless of course it's not, and you have friends with digital cameras, Facebook accounts and a twisted sense of humour.

"There's no way it would be possible to enforce any ban on prospective employers looking people up - it isn't relevant to compare it to taking up references as that involves actually contacting somebody known to the applicant and so can be shown to have taken place."

Surely their evil cackle and knowing smile at the interview would give it away? Wai_TungLeung wasn't convinced.

"And there was me thinking employers wanted a cover letter and a CV, now it seems they also want to take a peek into things beyond work. Certainly making the information public isn't a good idea and doesn't help matters, but I'm not on the side on believing they were complete idiots for ruining their career chances.

"It's a pretty false sense of security to hire someone who doesn't advertise out his drunken nights on MySpace."

2013: the year the IT department dies

Another story stoking up the fires this week was a prediction that the IT department would be obsolete within five years as offices turn to virtual desktops and hosted apps.

Mr_Flynn hit the story with a good old fashioned dose of PC Pro forums sarcasm.

"Anyway, I'll believe this in its entirety once I'm going to work in my hover car (after receiving a kiss from each of my robot wives every morning, of course)"

Lovebots, fantastic. ballem was more contemplative.

"I think this prediction will probably happen, though maybe not in five years. Already within my own company, the support department has been hugely cut back, pre-imaged desktops are delivered and installed by the suppliers, and there is a move to deliver multiple virtual desktops, each containing a particular mix of apps, on demand over the in-house network."

mamsystems, who's clearly not one of life's fence-sitters, disagrees... a lot.

"I will never allow another company to look after my mission-critical data. I will never rely on links to the internet for running mission-critical software. I will never trust an external company that has access to my data. I will never rely on an external company to backup and restore my systems."