Our Facebook identity Theft Protection Guide provides six tips to prevent Facebook users to become victims of identity theft. These six tips focus on two areas in which users can be proactive in protecting their identity and personal information: limit the amount of personal information available and limiting your Facebook profile for people you know and trust. Many of these tips are also applicable when using MySpace, but there are significant differences between the various social networking sites. While Facebook is mainly focused on one interaction with people you know in real life, MySpace is most frequently used to establish a presence in wider line and more public and facilitate contact with large groups of people. Although we always recommend that users only accept friend requests from people they know, we realize that it is not necessarily realistic. If you choose to make your MySpace profile visible to strangers, we strongly encourage you to be extremely careful when publishing information about yourself. I guess you would not walk in public wearing a printed t-shirt with your birthday, address and phone number. So use the same discretion on MySpace.
Tip # 1 :. public decide you want to be your MySpace profile, and select your privacy settings accordingly
MySpace offers some privacy settings, although they are not as comprehensive as the privacy settings on Facebook. You can access these settings by clicking on the "My Account" near the top right of every page on the MySpace site. From the "My Account", click on the "Privacy". This will take you to the "general tone", where there are six options to restrict your visibility.
Online: If you choose to show people when you're online is to you, but keep in mind that "time and place" of data you expose more more it will be for people to determine what your daily routine is as this knowledge could be used to victimize you (see Tip # 3 .)
Birthday..: This is an important part of personal information that can potentially be used by identity thieves. It is safer not to make it visible, especially if you accept friend requests from strangers.
profile viewable by: Who allows you to see your profile is a very important decision because it must determine the amount of information that you decide to publish If you choose to make your profile visible to. everyone, or everyone 18 and older, you must treat it as a personal and retain personal information to an absolute minimum site. If you choose to make your profile visible only by friends, and only accept applications from persons of friends that you know, you can basically follow the six Facebook safety tips.
Photos: There is almost never a good idea to encourage the circulation of personal images on the Internet. We suggest that you uncheck this option.
Users block Age: This is up to you, though you should seriously consider to prevent users under 18 to contact you if you are a teacher or work in another profession where you are an authority figure for minors. Also, keep in mind that the MySpace profiles of many users do not reflect their actual age.
Block User :. Although this can be a useful feature for you, it will not really help protect you against identity thieves, since you can not possibly know that they are ahead of time
Tip # 2 :. Limit the amount of personal information available on your MySpace profile
If you choose to make your MySpace profile visible only to your friends, and only accept applications from persons of friends you know, then Facebook six safety tips apply here. Many MySpace users, however, or make their profile visible to everyone or accept friend requests from strangers, or both. If your profile is visible to strangers, you must be especially careful when publishing information about yourself.
Expose your full name, birth date, telephone number, email address or home address to the general public is extremely stupid. Reveal personal information about your spouse or significant other can put you both at risk of having your identity stolen.
Identity thieves can use your phone number and address of the house to submit a change of address form with the United States Postal Service and sent your mail, allowing the thief to access the sensitive financial or other information that would allow them to open a credit card or other accounts in your name. They could also use contextual information in your profile to deduce that your user names and passwords for various accounts could be, and hack these online accounts with that information.
Our recommendation is to limit the amount of information available on your MySpace profile. Specifically:
- Do not list your full date of birth, telephone number or home address on your MySpace profile .
- Limit the amount of contextual clues password on your profile pages. Identity thieves know that many people use personal information such as birthdays, spouse or significant other birthday or name, birthdays, the maiden name of the mother or the name of the animal as a password on their personal account. It is also a good idea not to use personal information in your online passwords, as it makes your personal accounts much more vulnerable to being hacked.
Tip 3 :. Limit the amount of "time and place" of the data you expose on MySpace
usersMySpace often publish information about their time and place of their profile or MySpace forums. Information about the exact location of your home, school, or office, as well as information on your immediate and future can help criminals victimize you in a number of ways. Personal photographs can be even more revealing, because a number of seemingly insignificant details could be used to discover information about the place or the daily routine.
By revealing when you are away from your home, even indirectly or unintentionally, you put yourself in danger. Criminals can use this information to determine when your home can be more sensitive to burglary, which could open up a number of forms of identity theft or worse.
Tip # 4 :. Remember that even people you may know identity thieves
Even if you make your MySpace profile visible to only your friends, and only accept friend requests from people you know, you should always be very careful when giving out personal information online. Several recent studies show that a significant number of identity theft victims know the person who the victim.
According to Javelin Research, 17% of identity theft crimes are committed by people known to the victim, such as friends or family members. The credit bureau Experian found that 55% of identity theft perpetrated against children were committed by someone known to the victim.
Even if you believe that all your MySpace friends are people you know and trust, we strongly recommend that you always follow these safety tips to avoid being a victim of identity theft MySpace.
Tip 5 :. Read and follow the safety tips provided by MySpace
MySpace has recently added an extensive section on the website on security. You can access this section by clicking on the "Safety Tips" at the bottom of a page on the MySpace site. These safety recommendations are mainly directed at adolescents and their parents, but there is other information that should be useful and valuable for any user.
Tip # 6 :. Consider a protection service against identity theft
Identity theft, whether online or in the real world, is a real and growing threat. We recommend that all consumers plan to use a protection service against the proactive identity theft to protect their identities. Two of these services we have reviewed and recommend are Identity Guard and LifeLock.
Each service protection against identity theft is different, but most will be :.
- fraud alerts Set with 3 major credit bureaus so that new accounts can not be opened in your name without your knowledge
- provide insurance against theft identity that will reimburse the costs and expenses incurred as a result of being a victim.
- provide you with copies of your credit report.
You can learn about the various benefits of protective services against identity theft and learn more about the specific services that we examined by visiting our guide and comparison services protection against identity theft.
While social networks like MySpace can be fun and productive services, it is important that users are aware of the risks they pose. We believe that taking proactive steps to protect your identity on MySpace will only improve the amount of fun you can have on the service.