Orkut Spam, And How To Block It (For Life!)

Warning: This post is fairly long. You may need a cup of coffee (or even a few donuts) to get through this. ;-)

(Image Credit: AppScout)

Unless you are apart of the tiny minority who enjoys annoying the human race, you probably agree with me that spam is very evil.

Whether it's in the form of phone calls, emails or Orkut scraps from strangers, spam is the worst time waster in my opinion, mainly because their is no joy in reading or hearing messages that you have very little interest in.

So for those of you desiring to live a "spam free" life on Orkut, here are a few tips that you can use to make surfing Orkut a lot more fun.

Defend Thy Scrapbook

One of the great things about Orkut scrapbooks is the ability to leave messages that all of your friends can read. Unfortunately spammers have often used scrapbooks as a form of free advertising to the world, which can be iritating to both you and your friends.

Google has done an excellent job in fighting this using word verification, although unfortunately those days may be quickly coming to an end.

In order to keep spammers at bay, you may need to change your privacy settings to allow only friends, or friend of friends to post on your scrapbook. More information about that can be found over here.

Replace or remove Orkut email

Although its great that Orkut has an email system, its filtering abilities are limited at best.

In order to keep yourself from wasting time sifting through annoying emails, I would recommend either replacing Orkut email with Gmail or disabling Orkut email completely.

In order to set this up simply visit www.orkut.com/NotificationsSettings.aspx, and uncheck every box underneath the "message" column...



...and either check the boxes underneath the email column to have your favorite email address handle the messages...



...or you can leave all of the boxes blank and spammers will have no way of emailing you through Orkut (although neither will your friends).

Note: Currently there is not a way for only your only friends (or friend of friends) to email you, like the scrapbook, although Google will hopefully add this to Orkut sometime after their API launch.

List Digital Numbers Only

Unless you don't mind receiving random phone calls from strangers, you should never list your home or mobile number on Orkut (or any social network for that matter).

However, if you need to list a number online (for like business reasons), then you should list a "digital number" (with spam protection) instead.

Digital numbers are like regular phone numbers, and you can easily purchase one from Skype for a small fee, or from Google's GrandCentral for free (note: currently open to US users, but if you need an invite simply email me).

To add (or change) your number on Orkut, simply visit the "edit contact" page over at www.orkut.com/EditContact.aspx and scroll down to the "phone section" and enter your numbers below.



Last, do not forget to adjust your privacy settings in order to limit who can view your numbers.



That's it! These three tips have helped me avoid receiving spam messages while using Orkut.

If anyone has any other tips to add, be sure to let us all know by commenting below.

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