Don't accept anyone on to your social networking buddy list that you don't know in the real world.

Players can also establish a buddy list which indicates when friends are online and enables messaging.

This dual login works well to allow the buddy list to exist with or without the chat client.

Instant messaging systems tend to facilitate connections between specified known users (often using a contact list also known as a buddy list or friend list).

In particular, users could share files specifically with users who were included on a buddy list with the advantage of privacy.