Sunday, December 11, 2005

Privacy on MySpace.com


I promised a friend to tell him how to improve privacy on the profile page. Anyone who is not out, but wants to join some groups with "gay" in the name, should not display their groups publicly. To privatize your group memberships, go to Home > Account Settings > Profile Settings, and uncheck Display Groups belong to if you want to hide links to the groups you've joined on MySpace. Your MySpace groups will no longer be displayed on your Profile. You will still be able to access them by clicking your Groups link while logged in.



Each of your blogs can be posted as a public or private blog. Once you have finished writing, at the bottom you will see a number of choices, below mood and other stuff: Comments: disable Kudos & comments; Privacy: Public Diary Friends Preferred List [help].

Public - Anyone can read your post; Diary - Only you can read your post (you can use this like a diary); Friends - Only Myspace "Friends" can read your post; Preferred List - Only those on your Preferred List can read your post. The Subject of all of your blogs will always show on your profile page regardless of their privacy setting.

To create a Preferred list, go to Blog, and then on the left top, under MySpace Blog, you will see: Blog Home, My Subscriptions, My Readers, My Preferred List. Click on the Preferred list, and then search for the names of the people you want to allow to see your semi-private blogs. You can remove people from this list at any time.



If you want to ensure the ultimate MySpace privacy, make your Profile only viewable by your friends. To do that, change your age to 14 or 15. Home > Edit Profile > Basic Info: Edit: Date of Birth. Change the year to 1990 or 1991.


An alternate method of creating a private profile page is found in the Private Profile Tutorial: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=16065805&blogID=92748942

This method requires some HTML, but the author gives you very clear step-by-step instructions on how to do it. Also, the Terms of Service of MySpace prohibit you from lying about your age, so this version is more "legal" than simply changing your birthdate-of-record.

You can also go to Home > Account Settings > Privacy Settings, and

Check Require email or last name to add me as a friend if you want other users to be required to know your email address or your last name in order to send you an add friend request (this prevents people who don't know you from trying to add you as a friend).

Check Approve Comments before Posting if you want to review comments to your profile and journals before they are posted. Comments will NOT appear unless and until you approve them.

Check iHide Online Now to make your online status invisible to other users.

Check No Pic Forwarding to prevent other users from emailing links to your images from the site.

Check Friend Only Journal Comments to allow only your friends to post comments on your blog entries.

Check Block Friend Request From Bands to block unwanted friend request from bands.



I think this last stuff isn't very important, but it might make life easier for you. The only thing I do is hide my online status so people don't try to chat with me late at night.

Myspace profile: http://www.myspace.com/valoriez. Blog: http://blog.myspace.com/valoriez


One does not discover new lands without consenting to leave sight of the shore for a very long time. - Andre Gide

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