Legit Technique or a Serious Breach of Privacy?

[Kurt]

When you sign up for many of the popular social sites, there's often a page that allows you to import your contacts from the major email accounts, like AOL, gmail, yahoo mail, etc.

There's a Warrior or two (that I like and respect) that seem to have given my email address to these services, as I consistently get invites in my email box.

There's also now a script you can install on your sites that will do the same thing. When someone enters their info into a squeeze page, they are given an opportunity to invite their friends. The "friends" are contacted using the same means, by reading the details of your email account.

It's probably a great way of marketing...But I also feel it's a great breach of privacy. I doubt I gave you permission to give my email address to LinkedIn and other similar services.

And I sure wouldn't allow anyone else to have access to your email address through my own email contacts.

Is this legit marketing and am I the only one that's concerned about this? Or do you agree this is a huge breach of privacy?

[artwebster]

Hi, Kurt,

It's internet marketing so it has to be legit because nobody else is bothered about it and even if they were, they would simply say that it is too time consuming and expensive to do anything about it.

I have sometimes passed on the details of my contacts whom I knew might be interested in what was being offered but a blanket access to my address books is definitely never going to happen. Most of the people in there wouldn't know an internet marketer if they tripped over him in a gutter.

[Punkaj Dube]

IMO this is a huge breach of privacy. If you can't keep my email address safe, you don't deserve my email addy. Plain and simple.

[sbucciarel]

To me it's nothing more than spam. When I am someone's contact, that doesn't give them permission to give away or sell my email address to a list and the list owner in this case is getting a list that did not opt in to be on their list and probably won't welcome the spam in the email box.

[kennethtang]

Never done that. Who I have in my contacts book is none of their business. And it's very bad form on the part of the "giver, IMO, to divulge such info, even if it's to invite friends to join him/her on a network.

[dsmpublishing]

I think sometimes there can be a serious issue with your email address.

I wont name names but im friends with a top internet marketing guru that has been fined many times for spamming. We chatted twice by email (i never opted in to his list) next thing i knew i was receiving his monthly newsletter.

i opted out immediately have chatted to him since and it hasnt happened again. But with the powers of single optin this could very easily have happened to you.

kind regards


sam
X

[Frank Donovan]

Divulging the contents of one's address list IMO, is not so much a breach of privacy as a breach of friendship.

Whenever "friends" attempt to include me in such schemes or, worse, in any form of network marketing, they soon become "ex friends".



Frank

[kennethtang]

Originally Posted by Frank Donovan

Divulging the contents of one's address list IMO, is not so much a breach of privacy as a breach of friendship.

Touche! Hit the nail on the head...