It may seem like a novelty or an extravagance, but everyone should own their own domain name -- specifically, whenever possible, one should own one's own name, ending in dot-com. There are many fine reasons, but four stand out above the rest:

#1: There is no better way to secure your online reputation in a single step
Nobody should doubt that the importance of one's online reputation grows every day. The breadcrumb trail you leave behind on the Internet simply by taking up space on this planet is greater than most people would imagine -- even if you do nothing at all on the Internet yourself, you'll still almost undoubtedly end up with a presence there. Because that trail you unintentionally (or intentionally) leave behind now influences such important decisions as whether you're considered credit-worthy or whether you're employable, it's important to have as much influence over that reputation as you can grasp. The single easiest way to capture that is by securing your own name as a domain name.

#2: E-mail services may change, but your e-mail address shouldn't
Any decent domain-name service (I like PairNIC.com, but there are plenty of decent providers) will allow you to forward e-mail sent to your domain name to your choice of destinations. That means you can set up your own permanent e-mail address on your own domain that will forward to whatever service you want to use -- Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, your Internet service provider, or any combination of destinations you choose. This makes e-mail management easier for you (since you can set up multiple incoming addresses to suit different needs, like financial services, personal messages, and comments you post on public message boards), and it means that nobody will ever have to search for your e-mail address again in the future, just because you changed webmail services.

#3: Everyone has some sort of domicile on the Internet anyway
If you have a Facebook page, then you already have a website of your own. If you have a Flickr account or a YouTube channel, then you already have a website. If you have a LinkedIn account, then you already have a presence. If you keep up a Twitter account, then you already have an address on the Internet. The problem with all of these is that they become your "domiciles" on the Internet -- and they're all owned by somebody else. Sure, you may have rights to your account, but that isn't the same as actually owning your own domain name. The difference is like that between being a renter and being a homeowner. Both give you a place to stay, but only one is really "your" property. Buying a domain name is a way to ensure that your chief domicile on the Internet really belongs to you. There's nothing that says you can't use that domain name to point directly to your Facebook wall or your YouTube channel. But if you're going to invest your time and energy into anything resembling a digital version of yourself, then you really should ensure that you own the digital version of the very name that belongs to you in the real world.

#4: You don't know how much you'll use it until you get it
...then, once you get it, you won't know how you got along before you got it.

If you have kids (or grandkids), you're probably quite proud of them. That's great; it means you're a caring parent. But please do not use your child's picture as your Facebook profile photo -- or your profile picture anywhere else on the Internet, either. Here are several reasons why:

• Safety. Don't make it easier for predators to identify your kids by putting their pictures on the Internet. It's ridiculously easy to figure out who's related to whom just by using a few simple Internet searches. Once someone knows your name, and knows that you have kids, it takes no more than a couple of steps for them to figure out your kids' names. And if a predator knows your name, your kid's name, and what your kid looks like, then it's remarkably easy for that predator to target your child at school, at soccer practice, or on the playground -- and then use their knowledge of your family to concoct a potentially convincing story: "Hey, [child's name], my name's [fake name], and I'm a friend of your mommy and daddy. [Your name] had some car trouble, and they told me to take you home." If the predator has followed your Twitter posts, he might be able to add convincing details about something you did last weekend. If he's been following your LinkedIn profile, he could add lots of information about where you work and false details about how long you've been "working" together. Most children aren't wired to be skeptical enough for the information that's readily available today.

Frankly, that reason alone should be enough to stop you in your tracks. Remember: Your Facebook profile photo is as public as public can be -- it shows up in any Google or Bing search of your name, and the searcher doesn't have to do anything to prove they know you. But if the serious safety risk isn't enough, there are two other very good reasons not to use your child's photo as your profile picture:

• Confusion. If someone is looking for your profile online, they want to confirm that it's you that they've found. Casual acquaintances, old friends from school, and other people who are looking for you (which is what a profile picture is for) probably don't know what your kids look like. They might be able to locate a resemblance of some sort, but don't make their lives more difficult. Just put up a picture of yourself.

• Identity in the Internet age. The Internet has delivered the age of permanent memory. And as tools like Google Image Search improve, words (like your name) and pictures are being linked permanently in the "memory" of the Internet. Linking your child's photo to your name means that, should something happen to you (good or bad), it can become associated with your child's identity. If, for instance, you were to be accused of a crime, or involved in an accident, newspapers and television stations are going to search online for a picture of you, because that's what their readers and viewers want to see. If you've caused your name to be linked to your child's picture, they're going to get false results -- but how would they know? Mixing the wrong name with the child's picture can cause confusion and possibly even damage the child's reputation. It's going to be hard enough in the future for people born in the Google age to keep their reputations intact, with tools like cell-phone cameras available to document every childhood indiscretion. Don't make it harder for kids to protect their reputations by intermixing their identities with your own -- who knows what indiscretions of our own from the pre-Internet era are going to find their way online, on top of the ones we add today?

It's a simple request: Don't put your child's picture up under your name. It's a free and easy practice, and it's more important than you as a proud parent might intuitively think.