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Online Privacy on Orkut

Everyone has got a story of how their long forgotten friend from school/college/ last-to-last-to-last-to-last company met them on Orkut after so many years!

And undoubtedly Indians are a sizable community on Orkut. But is Orkut taking shape of another MySpace which has already turned into a ready-to-use database of information for cyber crimes?

How to keep safe on Orkut? Follow these simple guidelines!

Don't make your profile a goldmine for spammers and scamsters!
Guys, guys, guys! When will you understand that keeping your mobile number as part of your Name won't lead to more girls calling you? Neither your email-id help in getting you more friend requests! The only people who will love to have your contact information are spammers and telecallers. So give your mobile numbers and email ids in your profile and you can expect more spam in your mail box and more useless calls on your phone. This is just the tip of iceburg. Imagine other nasty uses of email-id and phone number and you are inviting all this mess!

Don't keep a photo which is big enough to be defaced/misused!
Specially for females this one! Your profile picture (if you keep your own photo at all) should have your face small enough so that it can't be misused in any manner (I hope you know the power of Photoshop). Do NOT keep any of your intimate photos in your orkut album. I suggest that for females, ideal profile pics are those taken from a distance and side poses (called 'profile views' in photography lingo!)

Try not to share email/phone number by scraps.
Messaging is a good option in Orkut, rarely used! Avoid giving someone your mail-id/phone number by scrap. Use email or messaging. However if scrapping this information, ask them to delete the scrap after taking it down or do it yourself.

Never talk work related stuff on scraps.
Not only work, any confidential chat should not be done on orkut. Apart from obvious threats, who knows your boss might be lurking there, visiting your and your colleagues' scrapbooks! And this is not a far fetched fantasy. A friend had such a TL in his previous company!

There is not a race going on for maximum number of friends!
Do NOT accept the friendship request from anyone you don't know/trust. Even if it is from opposite sex. You don't know who could be out there creating a fake profile!

Don't click on luring URLs.
Do NOT click on any URLs given by enticing profiles, promising whatever! Orkut and Google have raised warnings very often about viruses being transmitted in this manner.

Online Privacy is very important and is going to be more so in days to come, but this is like safety from AIDS! There is no cure, only prevention can keep you safe!

Comments

Good Points ... I guess little care can give you happy use of orkut.
Prakash Gupta said…
Gud points one must be aware of in using socializing n/ws.
Fox said…
I guess this blog is a must read for the non-IT types. I am already careful of those things. Here are some more:-

a. turn off tracking so girls don't know how often you visit them.
b. beg all your friends to write you raving testimonials. really good for your ego.
c. put snap of SRK or Will Smith instead of your own so that all the brazilian babes on Orkut get impressed.
d. Sign up for very intelligent sounding communities like 'Math Olympiad' or 'Puzzle maniac' and never visit them. This is just so that the brazilian chics kno u're smart 2!
e. Add all your friends on gtalk in one stroke and then ping them all the time...I know you have a lot of free time since you read my comment till this point!!!

N'joi!

- Sudeep.
Cool Dude said…
these are really important points while orkuting.
i dnt knw if u all are aware of this...
visit the below link..
http://help.orkut.com/support/bin/request.py?page=troubleshooter.cs&problem=feature&contact_type=feature&contact_type=feature&submit=ContinueThis

as this contains few features for future amendment in orkut which will prevent some of the points raise in this blog...
****"Do Safe Orkuting"****
Neha said…
hey...good points...i'll specially follow the profile photo wala and i'll also remove my mail id
Anupam Hyanki said…
Hola...! A must read for any goon not aware of the internet curses.

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