MySpace 2.0 Profiles.. Public is the new private
As you probably know, MySpace is probably the last social network to be recommended as a “good idea” with so many bands and ads and slow servers.. and the list goes on. Well now with “Profile 2.0” they have even made privacy a second priority. Don’t believe me? Look at your profile (if its set to private) while not logged in and you should see a message similar to the following:
Now update your profile to a 2.0 (“newer/better” edition) and then log out. Check the site once again. What do you see? Your now public profile! How this was overlooked at a company the size of MySpace boggles my mind, but whats funnier is they actually talk about it in the release like its a feature.
You may be asking yourself why I decided to investigate this? I clicked on a friends friend link on the top friends list and could see a profile that I knew should be private.. and I know she has recently updated to 2.0, as did I. So, I loaded up my page and voila, it was public. Now I have nothing to hide really, no deep secrets or gossip or anything of the sort. I actually lock my profile becuase I publish contact information for friends and family and don’t need IT Integrated Solutions getting even more ways to contact me.
I hope this is read by more people quickly as I am pretty sure people take security seriously, and this is a great example of a company basically putting it on the back burner.
diana
November 14, 2008 10:49 amNice work, very informative Matt, thank-you for pointing this out.
Now for sure my email address is secure here ?
;-P
You pest as always,
peace
d
Lele
November 18, 2008 11:32 amCustomize profile > Click on module you want to make private > Click on pencil icon > Change to friends only (apply to all modules is an option)
Problem solved.
mkeefe
November 18, 2008 11:43 am@Lele,
Yes, that is how you change it.. but why wasn’t that clearly communicated to the users? Its not a matter of “can it be done” but more about usability and security.
Note, it may have been updated since, but before it was not clearly spelled out.. unless you dug for it (on Tom’s blog).
Constance
November 26, 2008 11:41 pmWell, you can always set it back to Myspace 1.0, be warned that can completely wipe you entire MySpace out though. MySpace 2.0 has been, so far from my experience, nothing more than a collection of bugs than features; I’m finding that most of it isn’t properly working.
Lyss
January 28, 2009 4:51 pmProfile 2.0 definately has some bugs. There is a person that I have completely blocked (this person is on my blocked list) and I have made my profile modules viewable to “Friends Only” (this person is NOT on my friend’s list), and they are still able to not only read my blogs, but POST to them! I’m seriously considering switching back!
will
February 11, 2009 8:56 amOk, just converted to 2.0…. Had my profile on private before to keep out nosy ex girlfriends, but had the majority of my page public, with my comments, friends and details set to ONLY friends in a certain category…
Yet if you go to a page and copy the myspace url# specific to each of our pages and go to your friends or comments and paste that # over your own, it still allows my comments and friends to be seen…
Now thats lame, because I’ve tried the same thing with other peoples pages that I know are on public, but have friends or comments hidden and it says “this page is private, blahblahblah”
Why is mine not like that??? I’ve done all the things mentioned above, yet it still allows anyone to copy and paste and view my comments and friends..
Help.