Orkut - Don't scraps bother you

Orkut does an amazing job of networking you with long lost friends. No wonder, According to Wikipedia, Orkut is the second most visited website in India. But your amusing fun scraps and pomp-pomp actions lead to consequences that you will have to face one day.

Orkut should really be commended for making its appeal work at such a personal level. Be it the soothing theme color, ease of use or lack of advertisements on personal profiles.

In this era of web notoriety where people have second thoughts divulging personal information, the scrapbooks at orkut are filled with many intimate, not so public comments. Insanely large number of people have in excess of 1000 scraps. Do they realize that a part of their private life is now public, accessible to everyone.

I do realize that scrapping is a quick way of keeping in touch. Nicely fills a niche between messaging and emailing. But how can people be so naive as to make comments that are not intended for public consumption.

... and I have seen friends (ab)using this information.

Scrounge through the scraps, conversations and you will be surprised as to how much information you can garner.

Its akin to building a missing person profile or a terror-suspect case file for the FBI or Interpol. Analyze the scraps, friends, communities, follow conversations if you find them informative and you have got yourself a plethora of clues.

The more time you are willing to spend, the more of the puzzle you can solve and deduce what kinda person you are looking at.

What better use for this than to clandestinely know about your potential life partner. If you can narrow down a profile based on the information available to you via a marriage proposal, its just a matter of time and patience before you can piece together his/her life.

How about this for marketing tag line - Orkut : The Unofficial Marriage Proposal Search Database.

Doesn't this invasion of privacy alarm you. You better be because you never know who is looking. Friends who have taken note have since then deleted scraps, removed testimonials and altered their profiles. Believe me, I have seen enough negative consequences of profile portrayals in Orkut.

Its never high time to do the right thing. Make the right judgment call and be the boss of what the world knows about you.

Happy Orkuting !!