ok, explain Myspace to an old guy (privacy issues)

Factual Questions
1

(yeah, --I’m closer to a retirement home than to my old college dorm, so I’m out of the loop on this stuff)

An old friend of mine just sent me a note from his new Myspace page that invites me to be his friend. (Well, actually, we’ve been good friends for 30 years, but Myspace’s computer-generated announcement treats me like I’m a new addition to his social circle :slight_smile: )
But to see his page,apparently I have to join Myspace and make my own account (and my own page?)
So what do I gotta do?

Yes, I could ask the local 14 year old–but I know what she would say:“Everybody’s already on Myspace, so I suppose even an old fart like you should join ,too.”

But instead–I’m asking the Dope–(assuming we are wiser than a 14 year old)
What’s involved in being a Myspacer?
I am seriously concerned about privacy issues. (For example, when I send family pictures to relatives, I send them by email, to the specific people who I want to share my family life with. I don’t post the pics on a web site for the whole world to see).
A google search for my name comes up empty–which is the way I like it.
No, I’m not paranoid about identity theft or the FBI snooping on me, I’m just a private person who thinks that my smiling face and my private life should be easily available only to the people who I choose to share my experiences with.

I don’t want, say, my co-workers, to see all the details about my family reunion picnic. I don’t want relatives who live in London to know that I just spent a nice vacation there, but didn’t call them.

I assume that anything I post on mySpace, like anything I post on the Dope, will stay there pretty much forever. And eventually, google will find it.
No , I am not trying to hide a criminal past. But I am not willing to broadcast my personal life, either. If I tell a white lie to somebody about what I did last weekend, I don’t want to be worried that they might Google my name and find out that , say, I threw a nice party, but didn’t invite them.

So my question is: Should I register at Myspace page?
Can I register my name only, without opening my own page?
Will my name then become part of a network so that anybody who finds my friend’s Myspace page will know that I am on his list of friends? (Suppose , say, I bump into his ex-wife at the mall, and pretend that I haven’t seen him for a long time–and embarrassment ensues …)

2

You can make a page and then set it so that only people you are friend’s with can see it. You can set it so that in order to send you a friend request, someone must know either your email address or your last name. And finally, if you put a graphic file up rather than a picture, no one will know what you actually look like.

3

No, but you can make your page be nothing but your name.

Really, I don’t see what the big deal about privacy is. If you don’t want people to see whatever, just don’t put it on. People from Myspace aren’t going to go to your house and force you to put personal pictures and party plans on your myspace page.

4

One caveat, use a throwaway email address, because people can search for you by your email addy. A friend of mine found out that this guy she had been talking to was married and had a new baby by searching his email addy. She was not pleased.
I don’t understand the motivation for myspace, but then again I am not single, young or have tons of time.

5

That’s a very sensible approach to posting things online, and is one which a lot of people take. It doesn’t mean you necessarily need to avoid Myspace, though.

What you probably want to do is set your profile to ‘private’. The basic result of this is that nobody sees anything unless you agree to have them as a friend. All a stranger, or a not-your-friend-on-myspace friend, sees is a page suggesting that they request to add you as a friend. (Facebook works in this way by default, and this is one of the reasons it’s popular with people who never gave Myspace the time of day.)

6

Personally, I live in mortal terror of anyone on the internet learning my real name or where I live.

7

Even your real-life friends and acquaintances? That’s what the OP is talking about. I’ve no desire for my mother to start reading this forum, but she’s one of my friends on Facebook. (Actually works as a good measure of deciding what photos to make public…‘would I want my mother to see this? Oh, hang on,…’)

8

:smiley:

9

I would suggest you register using an e-mail account created especially for MySpace. That way anyone who knows your standard e-mail address can’t find you on MySpace. Also, make it one that doesn’t use your real name, to prevent you from popping up on a google search.

10

<immediately launching Google search to see if can find out who Bryan Ekers really is and where he lives…> :stuck_out_tongue: