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Page 1|Page 2|Page 3| The first group of rules relate to protecting your personal data until you are sure you can trust your contacts. Even then, there is certain data which you should never reveal. Never reveal your passwords anywhere online. This goes for any online activity. Passwords are there to protect your information, but it's surprising how many people don't take care of them, or pick passwords that a five year old could guess! If you think a password has been compromised, change it immediately, and if necessary inform the organisation who controls the system. They should be able to shut down the login account and issue you with another login name and password. When choosing passwords use a mixture of letters and numbers, upper case and lower case. OK, it's more difficult to remember, but you finally memorised your telephone number didn't you? I personally like inventing nonsense words with a few numbers used instead of vowels. Nobody thinks exactly like I do (they're strange people if they do) therefore they're less likely to guess my invented words. Try it. It's fun trying to work out what a broldafrap could be used for. Fake swear words are good too. Using an anonymous email account Some dating or friendship organisations are fairly relaxed about who they allow to join their community, with little vetting of registrations. For these types of organisation, it might be wise to use an anonymous email account for initial contact, until you trust the people contacted well enough to divulge further information. Other organisations, like NewFriends4U, are private sites, requiring security login, and we vet all registrations to weed out the more suspect applications. We also use an internal email system for initial contact, which is safer. In this situation NewFriends4U acts as a forwarding address, so other users can contact you via the NewFriends4U system, but don't get to see your real email address unless you give it to them directly. Again you can exercise some caution as to when you decide to do this. By choosing a good quality service, you can make it easier to control how and when your real details reach other contacts. If you decide to use a different email account for your recreational correspondence, remember to log in regularly to collect your email. Some free email providers such as Yahoo and Hotmail, have a checking system which deletes dormant accounts where email has not been accessed for a month or more. If you don't log in often enough, not only will you be missing out on people trying to contact you, but you may find your account is deleted without notice. Every site where you've used that email address will start deleting your records when they try to contact you, and find your email address is invalid. You can set up many email programmes to collect mail from many different accounts when you log on, so you don't have to mess about dialling up different email providers. If you regularly check your real email account, you can automatically check any other email account you have. Just be careful that when you reply, your message doesn't use your real email address as the return address. Using Your Real Name Online Some friendship and dating organisations recommend using nicknames (or 'handles') when registering. Again it very much depends on the type of organisation you are joining, and whether the site offers any safety mechanisms, such as login security, vetting registrations and rules of conduct. The problem with using nicknames is that you are going down the path of deception (at least in a minor way). Given that you probably don't want others to deceive you, is it fair to deceive them? In the case where a site requires you to give your real name, address etc., then providing your details are stored in a secure private database, and that those details are not posted, or sent out without your permission, then you are still in control of your information. Make sure you read a sites Terms and Conditions fully. One area to be careful with is the public open forum type of site, where anyone can join in with just a name and email address. Messages posted in a newsgroup could linger for years in the archives, so while you may have been comfortable with the community at the time you posted the message, years later you don't know who is reading your message or gleaning data from it. You may want to consider using an alternative email address for news group, or message boards, if only to control the junk mail you will undoubtedly receive. Crudity and lewdness It's sad to say but there are some juvenile people out there (probably just that - juveniles) who think it's OK to curse, swear, and make lewd comments online. Maybe they talk like that in real life, maybe not, but they get a 'can't touch me' feeling of invulnerability, sat out of sight behind their computer so they think they can say what they like. If somebody's message offends you, don't respond. First of all, check the conditions of registration for any online community you join, which you should do before joining anyway. Most communities have rules, and will attempt to deal with any situations which break them. However, if you find you've 'accidentally' joined an online sex site, don't be surprised if the rules don't say anything about talking dirty! Don't bother responding to anyone who is lewd or crude or makes you feel uncomfortable. Chances are they're trying to provoke a response anyway. Don't give them the satisfaction. For some email programs it's also possible to filter out messages based on content or source email address and dump them straight in the waste bin, so you don't even have to read them. If the community rules are being broken, inform the web master. They will want to protect their sites reputation, and will most likely close the offending account immediately. It doesn't stop the offender rejoining under a different name of course, but at least it makes it more difficult for them. With some online communities a physical address has to be supplied, so the web site owner can always follow up in a more formal way...... NewFriends4U: Sign-up Free at NewFriends4U! Search & Find New Friends Now! Success Stories |
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