Orkut is a social networking website that is owned and operated by Google. The service is designed to help users meet new and old friends and maintain existing relationships. The website is named after its creator, Google employee Orkut. Originally hosted in California, in August 2008 Google announced that Orkut would be fully managed and operated in Brazil, by Google Brazil, in the city of Belo Horizonte. This was decided due to the large Brazilian user base and growth of legal issues. The web site currently has over 33 million active users worldwide.
Features
Each member can become a fan of any of the friends in their list and can also evaluate whether their friend is “Trustworthy”, “Cool”, “Sexy” on a scale of 1 to 3 (marked by icons) and this is aggregated in terms of a percentage. Unlike Facebook, where a member can view profile details of people only on their network, Orkut allows anyone to visit anyone’s profile, unless a potential visitor is on your “Ignore List” (this feature has been recently changed so that users can choose between showing their profile to all networks or specified ones). Importantly, each member can also customize their profile preferences and can restrict information that appears on their profile from their friends and/or others (not on the friends list). Another feature is that any member can add any other member on Orkut to his/her “Crush List” and both of them will be informed only when both parties have added each other to their “Crush List”.
When a user logs in, they see the people in their friends list in the order of their logging into the site, the first person being the latest one to do so. Orkut’s competitors are other social networking sites including MySpace and Facebook. Ning is a more direct competitor, as they allow creation of social networks which are similar to Orkut’s communities
Origins
Orkut was quietly launched on January 22, 2004 by Google Orkut Buyukokten, a Turkish software engineer, developed it as an independent project while working at Google.

Redesigns
On August 25, 2007, Orkut announced a redesign and the new user interface (UI) contained round corners and soft colors. It also announced the initial release of Orkut in 6 new languages: Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, Tamil, Kannada and Telugu.
In 2007, Orkut greeted its Indian users Happy Diwali by allowing them to change their Orkut look to a Diwali-flavored reddish theme. On April Fools’ Day 2008, Orkut temporarily changed its name on its webpage to yogurt, apparently as a prank.
Fake profiles
As with any online social networking community, several fake and cloned profiles exist on Orkut. Due to the large number of users and the deactivation of the jail system, the profiles were often left unresolved or, when removed, recreated easily. These profiles are normally created to have fun with other fakes and creating “Fake Families” and sometimes for trolling or spamming.
Hate groups
In February 2011, there was controversy revolving around the use of Orkut by various hate groups. Several hate communities focusing on racism, Nazism and white supremacy have been deleted due to guideline violation.
In 2005, various cases of racism were brought to police attention and reported on in the Brazilian media. In 2006, a judicial measure was opened by the Brazil federal justice denouncing a 20-year-old student accused of racism against those of Black African ancestry and spreading defamatory content on Orkut.
Anti-national and anti-ethnic hate groups have also been spotted. Recently an Indian court has issued notices to Google on some of the groups. The Mumbai Police are seeking a ban on Orkut after objections were raised by political groups. Groups denigrating various political leaders and celebrities have also emerged.
Orkut has a Report Abuse feature available for all communities. Orkut communities can be reported if they contain hate/violence content. Any Orkut user (even those who are not the members of such a community) can report the abuse. The reasons for reporting abuse can be nudity or sexual content, theft of identity or personal information, child abuse, promoting illegal activities, any kind of personal attacks against any individual and a few others.
Privacy
Earlier in Orkut it was possible for anybody to view anyone’s pictures, videos as well as scraps, but people started misusing the photos and videos and placing them on the Internet with fake details. Many of them were vulgar, especially pictures of women. Moreover, the features like scraps, videos, photo albums, and testimonials were public. Orkut developers later introduced another privacy update that allow users to restrict viewing of their albums to certain number of friends, as well as selected e-mail contacts.
India
On October 10, 2006 the Bombay High Court’s Aurangabad bench served a notice on Google for allowing a hate campaign against India. This referred to a community on Orkut called ‘We Hate India’, which initially carried a picture of an Indian flag being burned and some anti-India content. The High Court order was issued in response to a public-interest petition filed by an Aurangabad advocate. Google had six weeks to respond. There has also been some media outcry against Orkut after a couple of youngsters were apparently lured by fake profiles on the site and later murdered.
Brazil
In 2006, Brazilian Federal Judge ordered Google to release Orkut user’s information of a list of about twenty four Brazilian nationals, believed to be using Orkut to sell drugs and to be involved in child pornography. The judge ordered Google to pay $23,000 per day in fines until the information is turned over to the Brazilian government.
Although Orkut is less popular in the United States than competing social networks like Facebook and MySpace, it is one of the most visited websites in India and Brazil. Check out www.orkut.com to see if it’s your piece of cake.
By Praem Rambharak