Have you ever wondered what happens to the pictures and images you upload on Facebook?

Well, all media files are stored on servers--but with 350 million new photos uploaded EACH DAY and a collection of 240 billion photos already uploaded, Facebook is looking for a more-efficient storage system. Their goal is to keep them.

According to the Oregonian, Facebook will be converting part of its facility in Oregon to a “cold storage” system to hold the old images on low-power servers to save energy.  In Facebook’s first nine months of operation there, those servers consumed as much energy as 6,000 homes.

Set aside the fact there's an amazing amount of energy consumed to keep your high school pics online, remember those images are not going away anytime soon. Facebook will immortalize you with them.  

The moral of this story is that it's important to be careful about the pictures and images you post.  They could be used against you by college admissions boards, current or future employers, old ex-friends, private investigators, bounty hunters, sexual predators, identity thieves, and many more.

I work for Net Nanny and all opinions are my own.