"But Mr Schmidt is completely right on how much information we are giving away online. Right now there are millions of young kids and teenagers who, when they apply for jobs in 10 years' time, will find that there is so much embarrassing stuff about them online that they cannot take down."
Those who wish to delete what they have put up online, meanwhile, may find it next to impossible to entirely erase their cyber past.
"What many people do not realise is that as soon as you put something up online you lose possession and control of that information immediately," said Rik Fergusson, a cyber security expert at Trend Micro. "Anyone can download, store and distribute that information, it's out of your hands."
Ms Snyder, a trainee teacher, had passed all her exams and completed her training. Her academic record was unblemished. That is, until her final summer, when her teachers – out of the blue – deemed that the behaviour she had displayed in her personal life was unbecoming of a teacher.
Her crime? She had uploaded an image of herself, wearing a pirate costume and drinking from a plastic cup on to a social networking site with the caption: "drunken pirate."
Ms Snyder never got the certificate she needed to teach and an attempt to sue the university for it was unsuccessful.
