Plaxo.com, the contact management people, have an option in their privacy policy that you can opt-out of having their members send you invites or reminders. I did that back in September 2004, and haven’t received any other Plaxo garbage since then. Now Plaxo has an e-greeting card system. Which apparently Plaxo.com feels does not have to conform to the privacy policy and standards of the primary/corporate Plaxo web site. Complaints filed. SpamAssassin rules tweaked for both plaxo.com and plaxoecards.com.
I read that plaxo does not spam. I feel bad because I sent it to all my friends just letting them know… was I wrong?
I’d be inclined to say that, in general, sharing your friends’ email addresses with any third party is a bad thing to do. It would be better if you asked your friend directly to register at the site, then your accounts could be linked together.
My problem in this post was that Plaxo decided to ignore their privacy policy and try to get people to opt back into their site, by setting up a “new” Plaxo site. When I opt out of a site, that means forever. Or until *I* choose to opt back in. And if I’ve opted out, you get *no* new chances to contact me.
Regarless of whether or not they violated their privacy policy you should never never share your friends email addresses with any third party.