Why are my posts and other items on the internet showing up as a hit on the internet searches published?

[Yahzmin (US)]

Many sites have age limits, but they are not enforceable. Nor do they verify them, in many cases. And there are virtually NO privacy rights anywhere on the internet. That is why it is so harmful for children to be allowed access to the internet without adult supervision. Information posted on sites like MySpace and Twitter, Facebook and others, is readily available - because we AGREE to that when we sign up. Putting ourselves - and our children - at risk.

Most search engines 'crawl' sites (or get linked to their data directly), so they will show links to your questions, answers and other information that you have made available. You can hide your profile here on Yahoo Answers; you can set things to 'private' on your MAIN Yahoo profile page ( http://pulse.yahoo.com ), and you can choose to 'not update' things you post here, using Settings there on your pulse page. But other sites can still extract your q&a from here, using different types of code, because Yahoo Answers is a PUBLIC site and allows that.

The only way to achieve privacy on the internet is to not use it.