One of the questions we're asked most often about conducting investigative research through social networking profiles is, "Do the people whose profiles I'm looking at know that I've looked at their profiles?" Most major social networking sites have refrained from giving the end-users specific information about who has visited their profiles. There have been a few exceptions to this rule like Classmates and LinkedIn. Now MySpace has announced its new "My Visitors" feature, calling it "a cool way to see who's checking out your profile, and let your friends know you've stopped by theirs." 

Despite the hype, this new service will not "out" the clandestine online investigator. MySpace clearly states that in order for someone to see who has viewed their profile:

• both the visitor AND the profile owner must have the "My Visitors" feature enabled
• the visitor must be logged into a MySpace account
• even if the visitor has a MySpace account with the "My Visitors" feature enabled, if the visitor is not logged into the account they will not show up as a visitor

Clearly, any cybersleuth wanting to avoid detection by the "My Visitors" feature can easily do so by not logging into a MySpace account and/or not enabling the feature in their own account.

MySpace describes the service this way:

To turn My Visitors on or off, here’s what you do:

1. scroll down to the My Visitors panel on the right side of your Home page
2. if My Visitors is on, switch it off by clicking Turn off and browse anonymously
3. if My Visitors is off, activate it by clicking Turn My Visitors on (get your mind out of the gutter—you’re just seeing your profile visitors!)
4. once you click the link, the setting is changed—it's that easy

To turn My Visitors on or off with privacy settings, here’s what you do:

1. hover over My Profile and select My Privacy
2. check or uncheck the box next to Turn My Visitors on
3. click Save and your set

Important stuff to know:

• both you and your visitor must have My Visitors activated to display in the panel
• you can turn this feature on or off whenever you want
• your Profile View count (hover over your profile picture, or look under your homepage picture) may be higher than your My Visitors count (in the My Visitors module on your homepage), as friends who have not activated My Visitors will only appear in the profile view counts
• users and visitors must have the same country IP and have the same country settings in their profile to be seen
• if you aren't logged in, visiting another profile will not show you as a visitor 
• My Visitors will only display the last 9 visitors to your profile
• users under 18 can only see visitors who are under 18
• users over 18 can see anyone
• for now, this feature is only available in the US, UK, and India, as well as several non-English based cultures, but don’t worry, it’s coming your way