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General discussion

Facebook's Alternative

May 13, 2010 10:20PM PDT

I see you guys have complained about Facebook's privacy a lot, but you haven't told your listeners that there are alternative full-featured social network sites such as Google's Orkut.

Orkut has gone through a redesign based on Usability Tests and user feedback and it has become much easier to use than Facebook. It's much faster than any other SNS and it has much easier privacy settings. You can set the privacy level to "Only Friends", "Friends of Friends" and "All" exactly at the place where you add the information to the site and there are only 6 items in the site we can set the privacy of.

BTW, Molly will love to know that Orkut has most games Facebook has.

Discussion is locked

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Couldn't help but chuckle...
May 13, 2010 10:35PM PDT

When I think of privacy and alternatives to Facebook, GOOGLE is the last entity I would ever consider! They, in their own way, are just as guilty of harvesting personal info. Look at the BUZZ calamity.

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Complaint vs Response
May 13, 2010 11:19PM PDT

The B.O.L. folks were complaining about how difficult it is to manage Facebook's privacy control. My post was about how Orkut is better at this.

Now, changing the subject to what you have said, when it comes to some one having control over who sees our data, I agree with you, Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Apple, any other private company that comes to mind and specially the government are not trustworthy. No one in the world is or will be trustworthy for this position. "No one" having control over our data is always better than "some one" having it.

Your issue with SNSs is that you don't want to give your private info, which is fine. Just don't use SNSs at all. B.O.L. issue was something else. They complained about a complex incomprehensible privacy control system. At this matter, Orkut is much better than Facebook and that is all my comment was about.

P.S.: Please pay attention to what is being discussed.

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OUCH!
May 14, 2010 1:27AM PDT

Notwithstanding that gratuitous slap at the end, lol, do you think it's wise to look at any SNS offering from Google in a vacuum, given their recent privacy issues? Sorry, but I can't ignore that. But, that's just me. So, while you may very well be right in that they haven't set up the maze that FB has, it's their own recent privacy adventures that give me pause.

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I agree with you
May 14, 2010 4:24AM PDT

I agree with you that Google engineers have made a terrible privacy control system in the opt-in product Google Buzz. I have turned it off and never used it again as soon as I understood what it was. I think their over-protected controlled persecution-free working environment may induce them into na

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Sure
May 14, 2010 11:41AM PDT

But all my friends are on facebook. I could try myspace but it's a pig sty.