Avoiding people you barely know on Facebook before you sign up
On Facebook, you can search for people you know through your web based email address book (such as Gmail). You can then send a friend request or invitation to all people or selected people on that address book. If the person is a member, a request is sent to add them to your friends list. If not, the information is stored until that person joins, when a friend request is automatically sent to the person. That is why so many people find you so fast when you join. There is one negative about this though. You don’t necessarily want to have all these people on your friends list.
A simple way to avoid this without going to technical details about privacy settings and the sort is simply use an email address you wouldn’t normally use – create a new one for Facebook only if you want to. Then YOU can go around looking for people YOU want to add and not be ambushed by your bosses ex-wife’s crazy cousin.
Clearly if people will search for you using your name they will find you by default, but it is fairly unlikely your bosses ex-wife’s crazy cousin will be searching for you like that. By the time she finds you, you have learned that it’s okay to decline a friendship invitation and it won’t be such a big deal any more. 
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yeah….I haev some mental guy who inists we met up in Tennesse for sex through Adult Friendfinder who keeps trying to add me on Facebook.
I have no clue who he is and I have reporte dhim twice and his profile has gotten deleted so my guess is he is doing this to more than me.
I wish Facebook had a “block” option so you could block the person and never hear from them again…even as a friend invite to join the friends list.
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oh i SO agree with you!!!! there are plenty of people i will never be “friends” w/on FB. just b/c i met you once in real life doesn’t mean you should get to see all my content/pictures/likes and dislikes. some things need to stay private (or as private as they can be on FB)
I can’t really say that I would use the avoid people -method, as I don’t really have issues with what people know about me. Everything is pretty much out in the open or alternatively NOBODY knows it. However I know a lot of people who find it very distressing to know that some half-stranger can find you on Facebook, and as it is so much fun I thought it would be sad for them to miss out just because they don’t want to be found.
But stalking is so much fun! :p
No, not really. I don’t really believe that.
Being stalked is more my thing… I actually feel wanted then.
This is solid advice and I’m glad you shared it. Thanks
Now Facebook is a site where I will NOT add just any fool to my friends list. At the Blog Catalogue, I’ll add liberally, but with Facebook I’m a conservative adder and I think everybody should be. Who wants that boss’s crazy ex-wife’s thoughts, comments, friend formations and the like (the ilk) cluttering up their page? I want to be able to find the comments that matter to me.
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Exactly right. On my Facebook, I have only friends or people I at least know somewhat, and a few strangers who have a same interest as I do, mainly Barbie collectors and field spaniel breeders or owners. I would definitely NOT add my boss on my Facebook friends if I had one, nor his ex-wife’s crazy cousin.
On Orkut, there is a privacy option to disable your discovery through email address!
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You can do that on Facebook as well, it’s just a bit tricky for a first time user and is often too late by the time people auto-find you on Facebook.
Nice tip, but we can make our profile unsearchable by editing that option as Vikas Gupta said. Well, I stumbled across at your blog from Facebook Networked blogs under ‘Related Blogs’. I use the application too
That is true Armand, you can, but have you ever tried to explain that option to a 50-year-old who just wants a Facebook profile as she just got her first computer?