Would like some opionions on this issue...

DougS · 10 Jan 2000, 04:05 PM

I just saw a post yesterday in a newsgroup from a supposed ex-excite employee, to keep it short and sweet i will just condense what he said in a nutshell:

He said the reason for excite plus alot of your other large mail portals for enhancing thier address books-Pims is that they compile the information from thier databases to sell to advertisers. He also brought up the point that if Hotmail was willing to pay $90,000 for a large chunk of email addresses from a company(Can't remember the name) then why would'nt all the others be willing to sell your friends and familys email addresses for a price ?

I really have to wonder this myself, i have signed up for accounts with alot of large email providers and in just a short amount of time the flow of UCE starts rolling in from everywhere. Some of the accounts i signed up for i never even used, not even once and during the signup period it gave me an option to not recieve mail from thier sponsers which i checked/unchecked, yet here i was a really popular guy with all these merchants i had never even heard of or had never even visited or emailed thier sites and to boot my wifes account got the same messages!!

Her account was the only one i had added to my address book. Anyway enough ranting on this subject, i would like to hear others opionions on this subject and maybe even a few who actually have had the same happen to themselves.

Whats your thoughts on this Edwin ? How secure are someones email addresses on a large email portal and where does it say that they can't pilfer our address books for our friends and familys email addresses and personal information ?

***Edwin*** · 10 Jan 2000, 11:13 PM

I think I'll stand back from this debate and hope somebody with a legal background can fill in on what the law allows these companies to do. The one thing that I will say is that hearsay is always dangerous (even if it later turns out to be true).

I guess the answer to the question is buried very deeply in the "Terms & Conditions" document of the services in question (which may in turn refer to other documents such as a privacy policy).

Let's see what reactions spill out of this...

10 Jan 2000, 04:05 PM	#1
DougS Junior Member Join Date: Dec 1999 Location: Peoria, Arizona USA Posts: 4	Would like some opionions on this issue... I just saw a post yesterday in a newsgroup from a supposed ex-excite employee, to keep it short and sweet i will just condense what he said in a nutshell: He said the reason for excite plus alot of your other large mail portals for enhancing thier address books-Pims is that they compile the information from thier databases to sell to advertisers. He also brought up the point that if Hotmail was willing to pay $90,000 for a large chunk of email addresses from a company(Can't remember the name) then why would'nt all the others be willing to sell your friends and familys email addresses for a price ? I really have to wonder this myself, i have signed up for accounts with alot of large email providers and in just a short amount of time the flow of UCE starts rolling in from everywhere. Some of the accounts i signed up for i never even used, not even once and during the signup period it gave me an option to not recieve mail from thier sponsers which i checked/unchecked, yet here i was a really popular guy with all these merchants i had never even heard of or had never even visited or emailed thier sites and to boot my wifes account got the same messages!! Her account was the only one i had added to my address book. Anyway enough ranting on this subject, i would like to hear others opionions on this subject and maybe even a few who actually have had the same happen to themselves. Whats your thoughts on this Edwin ? How secure are someones email addresses on a large email portal and where does it say that they can't pilfer our address books for our friends and familys email addresses and personal information ?

10 Jan 2000, 11:13 PM	#2
*Edwin* Administrator Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: UK Posts: 3,118	I think I'll stand back from this debate and hope somebody with a legal background can fill in on what the law allows these companies to do. The one thing that I will say is that hearsay is always dangerous (even if it later turns out to be true). I guess the answer to the question is buried very deeply in the "Terms & Conditions" document of the services in question (which may in turn refer to other documents such as a privacy policy). Let's see what reactions spill out of this...