More scrapping business

IT has been more than three months since “The Scrapping Business” was published on this very page. Basically the idea put forward was that one’s scrapbook on the popular social networking website, Orkut (http://www.orkut.com) contains enough information for someone to glean in their leisure and gain an infinite amount of knowledge about one’s friends, attitudes, beliefs and workplace.

For such personal information to be at the disposal of all and sundry is extremely scary. The solution that was suggested was to delete all personal scraps after reading and replying to them.

However, the mere idea that a person’s scrapbook compromises his privacy to a large extent ruffled quite a few feathers. Scraps and emails by the dozen found their way into my inbox, some loudly refuting my claims and others admitting that the article at least made them think. Of course the idea always was to make you think about these things rather than take them for granted and assume that your scrapbook is the most private place to discuss your schedule and routine.

There were some people who agreed with this notion. “Those who think people have no time to go through others’ scrapbooks are so wrong. Even I am guilty of scanning my friends’ scrapbooks from time to time to see what they are up to. One’s scrapbook speaks louder than one’s profile,” expressed Sarah Arman, a student of computer sciences at a private university.

“Orkut has to do something regarding privacy,” said Hira Arshad, another student. “There is no privacy on Orkut at all. Where do we hide our personal messages or personal information?”

Zainub Razvi, a student of dentistry took a more pro-active stance on that front. She wrote out a long email and sent it to the Orkut staff, where she detailed all the problems with privacy matters and how to deal with them. Here is an excerpt from her letter:

“I scrap my friends often just to catch up with them, but some times, I also scrap them in order to schedule get-togethers, discuss family matters and other such things which I clearly do no wish for every member of Orkut to see.”

“A closer look at people’s scrapbooks and especially scraps exchanged between friends can easily give anyone an idea (a brief, discreet one may it be) of what that person might be up to, what are his or her plans for this weekend, so on and so forth. I think this greatly compromises at least my sense of privacy. I don’t know if I’m just being hyper paranoid about this but I’m just not comfortable with the idea that a perfect stranger can have unchecked access my communications with my acquaintances.”

“That is why I have been deleting all the scraps that I receive and have now even started telling my friends whom I scrap to delete the scraps I send them after they’ve read them. Though I have to admit their responses have not been encouraging since most of them it would seem do not share my concerns of loss of privacy.”

“So I was hoping if you could consider the idea of allowing Orkut members the option of making their scrapbooks either completely or selectively private, so that they can choose who can have access to their scrapbook. This could well be similar to the option you have for various fields of the Profile page by which you can restrict what aspects of your profile your friends, friends’ friend and everyone else can see. Any thing like that would be very beneficial for the more privacy sensitive members like me.”

Of course, where there were people who agreed with the idea, there were quite a few who found it plain ridiculous.

“It’s just plain far-fetched,” declared an avid Orkut user. “I mean who in the name of God has time nowadays to track down a person through their Orkut scrapbook? Also, I object to your point of view about relating one’s number of scraps to their popularity. That would be generalising the situation. Maybe, majority of people on Orkut want to increase their scraps for the sake of appearing in demand, but there is a minority group like me who are just plain lazy to delete all those scraps every time they use Orkut!”

It is true that many people found the reasons for deleting scraps too far-fetched. The common opinion was that deleting scraps is too much of a hassle, and what’s the point anyway? No one has the time to go through any scraps. But then, assuming no one has time to read scraps – maybe they do and you never know because the profile view is turned off. There are after all, many people who admitted to snooping on others’ profiles and the writer also happens to be an occasional snooper too.

One reader also pointed out that, maybe putting aside all the reasons concerning others, the major reason can be your own self. They are your scraps. They constitute a communication between you and the person you know. Why should a third person come in between and not only read that communication, but also quote it out of context or form any opinion about it? In real life, we do get really annoyed when someone breaks into our conversation and sometimes, we stop discussing it completely. So why do we assume that things are any different online? Plus, you have to keep in mind that the terms and conditions of Orkut itself allow it to store and distribute all information that is there on your profile – this effectively includes your scrapbook too.

Although public opinion still seems quite sceptical, there are people who have actually built software upon the idea of scrapbook snooping. Also particular software which you can use to monitor the scraps of whom so ever you want, without actually logging onto Orkut at all. For privacy’s sake, the software will remain unnamed here. However, the way it works it this - you simply select whoever you want to keep track of and whenever those people get a new scrap, you get a pop-up window similar to the one you would get when someone sends you a message over MSN Messenger. To date, this software has been downloaded eighty thousand times – a whopping figure, no doubt! And this should ideally give all those people a reality check, who thinks Orkut users have no time to snoop on people’s scrapbooks.

Having said that, it is heartening to note that there are many people who have started taking this issue as a serious privacy matter. There are increasing instances of profiles around Orkut which feature no scraps at all. It does seem that there is more of a conscious effort to keep private communication away from the snooping and the non-snooping eyes and that indeed is a step in the right direction.

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Some names have been changed.