- Flag the profile: This is the first step that you need to do (and if you skip this, you may end up making the process longer). Underneath every profile (and community) there is a report abuse button where you can notify Google of the offense.
Select the impersonating someone else or is a fake person option...
...and in the text field below provide a detailed description of why this profile is fake, along with links to your real profile and the fake one for Google to compare. - Alert your friends: Contact your friends online (via email not scrapbook) and ask them to do the same above.
The email method would be advisable over scrapbook because it doesn't alert Mr. Fake Profile on what is happening and it keeps your friends scrapbook from being flooded with unnecessary outrage.
Note: For those of you who are Firefox fans, Orkut Helper makes this process so much easier as all you have to do is right click and select "report as bogus" on the profile link. - Alert the Orkut Public: believe it or not, there are certain forums whose sole purpose is to alert each other about fake profiles so they can (as a group) remove them from Google's system. See this post for details.
- Contact the Authorities: Only do this if the fake profile created is posting your personal info online (i.e. phone numbers, email, address) and random people are requesting disgusting services (you know what I mean by this).
American users will probably receive a faster response (being that Orkut is hosted here locally) than those in other nations such as Brazil or India. Either way, don't go off into "Google hating," as they often have to balance user privacy against justice issues.
Note: If you are a lady, I would recommend contacting the authorities if the profile is harassing you in any way, as these losers should know better. - Relax and wait: Don't let this one profile ruin your experience online. After you (and various individuals) have reported this, simply go on surfing Orkut, and enjoying life in Google's deep blue forum.
Also give Google at least two weeks to remove the profile, as they are supporting close to 50 million users on Orkut alone, let alone the hundreds of millions (if not billions) who use their other services daily.
Note: if after two weeks you do not receive a response, you can contact Orkut directly over here or alert Google at security [at] google [dot] com .
Now that you know the steps you have to take to successfully remove a profile, here are several things you SHOULD NOT do:
- Hack the account: This will not only get you banned from Orkut, but also from most of Google's services.
Worse, your fake profile would still remain, spreading even more havoc online. - Threaten the user: Although it may feel great to vent how you feel towards Mr. Fake profile, this could also not only get you banned, but also arrested as well (which would make the situation worse).
Note: Ironically in similar situations I've seen some people get banned from Orkut because of this (which helps out your enemy more than it helps out you). - Spam their scrapbook: It's not only a waste of time, but also a quick way to earn Google's wrath.
- Yell at Google: I would only recommend this if you want to slow down the response time for Google to solve your problem.
Simply alert Google to your problem, and do not spell in all caps (it's considered yelling) and check your grammar and spelling.
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