Already, employers, school admissions bureaucrats, etc. are routinely searching through people's trails left on Facebook and Google. What happens when an even greater portion of one's life will be customarily posted online? How long before not having a rich online trail is considered weird and suspect by itself?

While we're simply stating our beliefs...

I view this as merely a transition period. You say we cannot both maintain our old puritanical public standards and ever increasing public disclosure. I agree.

However, the latter is driven by powerful and deep economic & technological & social trends, and the former is a weak creature of habit and tradition which has demonstrated in the 20th century its extreme malleability (just look at homosexuality!).

It is a case of a movable object meeting an unstoppable force; the standards will be forced to change. A 10 year old growing up now would not judge harshly an old faux pas online, even if the 30 and 40 year olds currently in charge would and do now judge harshly. Those 30 and 40 year olds' time is numbered.