How to Cut Down on Spam in MySpace

By Ryan Hupfer, Mitch Maxson, and Ryan C. Williams

4 of 8 in Series: The Essentials of Staying Safe on MySpace

You can manage MySpace spam by clicking the Spam link in the main Settings Account window to open the Settings: Spam window. Then use the following check boxes to turn certain MySpace spam options on and off:

Spam Presets slider: This sliding scale of predetermined spam settings can go from Low to High to Custom, depending on how tight you want your profile’s spam protection to be. This setting is a quick and easy way to tighten up your profile’s security, and it will show you what options are turned on and off with each slide of the scale, as you slide it.
Messages: You can turn the Allow Non-Friends to Send Me Messages option on or off depending on whether you want complete MySpace strangers (nonfriends) to be able to message you.

Making it so that only friends can message you is definitely safer, but it’ll also make it harder for those who may want to send you a random message to get in touch with you via your MySpace profile.

There’s also a CAPTCHA option, which requires nonfriends to enter a random code before they can message you. This option tries to make sure that the message isn’t from a spammer, but it also may make it more difficult for the new people who are legitimately trying to contact you.
Friend Requests: Whoever wants to send you a Friend Request will be prompted to fill in either your last name or your e-mail address — which basically means you won’t be receiving Friend Requests from complete strangers. This option is unchecked by default. There’s also an option to require all friend requesters to enter a CAPTCHA code before requesting your MySpace friendship. You can also block comedians, filmmakers, and bands from friend-requesting you.
Comments: In the MySpace world, the content displayed on your page isn’t always posted by you. A popular example of this is the Profile Comment, used regularly to communicate with fellow MySpacers. You can require all comments to be approved by you before they’re posted to your profile.

The CAPTCHA option is available on this setting as well, just in case you want to tighten up your security even more. Also, if you want to limit your potential blog comments to friends only, that option is available to you.
Group Invitations: Moderators of new MySpace groups can invite any other MySpace user to join their groups; all they need is your e-mail address. If you want only your friends to be able to use this option to invite you to groups, check the Allow Only My Friends option. You can also block all group invitations or any group invitations from bands, comedians, and filmmakers.
Event Invitations: Many MySpacers post events on MySpace as a way to let others know what’s happening on a day-to-day basis. Although it’s great to stay in the loop on some of these events, you may find that you’re getting overwhelmed with invite after invite.

If you feel like you need to manage your incoming invitations, you have the option of limiting your incoming invitations to only those that are coming from your friends, comedians, bands, regular MySpace users, and Filmmakers so that you’re only getting the invitations that you want to know about. Don’t feel like getting any invitations? There’s an option for that too, and don’t be afraid to use it.
IM Invitations: If you want nonfriends to be able to invite you to an IM (Instant Messaging) conversation, you can keep this option checked.