Wanted: online privacy police.

• Author: Swartz, Nikki
• Position: Up front: news trends & analysis

Posting your resume online may put your privacy at risk. According to a recent report by the World Privacy Forum, the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, and the Electronic Privacy Information Center, online job-search firms are increasingly sharing and selling job seekers' personal information to marketers and employers hoping to target certain audiences.

The World Privacy Forum, a California nonprofit organization that studies technology's effect on privacy, reviewed the data-sharing policies of 53 job-search Web sites and more than 200 resume-writing services. It found that the sharing of information gleaned from millions of job seekers on these sites has become common and increasingly sophisticated as the sites look for new revenue streams. Further, experts say the information sharing is being done in ways that might violate discrimination and credit-reporting laws in some cases.

For example, computer kiosks at sites where job applicants fill out information may violate fair-credit standards by not offering applicants a way to restrict the sharing of their information.

Monster.com subsidiary Fastweb.com, a popular site for students to apply for college...