Invasion of Privacy
@saigonwarrior (1331)
United States
February 20, 2010 1:08pm CST
I am just curious of how many have even thought of this. This has bothered me from day one of signing up at this site. I won't mention the name of the site, but it is a social networking site that a lot of MyLotters are a member of.
You sign up with your personal information and your email address/password then you invite friends.
This is where it becomes questionable to me.
This site pulls my PERSONAL email contacts from my email account and asks me if I would like to invite these people as friends.
Call me paranoid, but..wouldn't you have to be inside of MY email account to see MY personal email contact list? Which is "supposed" to be protected by my password.
I immediately made a fake email just for this site through gmail and removed my "real" personal email account. I don't have any contacts with this new email, so therefore I don't have anymore, "maybe you would like to invite so and so to be your friend."
IF someone or something can see YOUR personal email contact list, well this would mean that this program is inside of your passworded account. IF it can see your contacts then this program can also READ your emails.
That to me, is an invasion of privacy.
They also have ads targeted to your age, which means a program is going through your profile to boot!
Have you ever been concerned about this invasion of privacy on this program?
It is a very popular social site. I bet if you are a member you know exactly which site that I am talking about.
It all seems a little creepy to me.
1 person likes this
3 responses
@kaylachan (71773)
• Daytona Beach, Florida
20 Feb 10
I am on many social networking sites that I've lost count. So I don't know what site you're talking about. I have seen social sites that allow you to use your contact information from your e-mail account to send mass e-mails to more than one person. But, you have to provide your e-mail adress and password in order to gain access, and have to give "permission" to view the contact info, which is accessed seperatly by those programs from your actual e-mail account.
Your contact information can be considered "public" meaning programs can pull it up for you.
I've used it before, and I've got no problem with it. Though if I wasn't asked to provide my e-mail adress and password to access my contact lists I'd get suspicious. But, its different though if social sites like beebo partner with say Aim in which case one single log-in links you to everything Aim has to offer.
2 people like this
@saigonwarrior (1331)
• United States
20 Feb 10
Yes, you are probably correct and I did not review the site enough
when I joined. I normally don't join networking sites, MyLot and this other site are the only two.
I did research and found a way to have my contacts/submissions deleted and did so.
Thanks for the information! I feel like a dummy now, even though I have worked online for years and should have researched better!
1 person likes this
@irishmist (3814)
• United States
20 Feb 10
I don't know which site you are talking about, but it sounds really creepy to me. I would not want anyone puttering around my contacts or anything else like that.
2 people like this
@saigonwarrior (1331)
• United States
20 Feb 10
I didn't read the fine print before, I just signed up. Then I changed my email address afterward.
I think that I am through signing up for these things.
The only reason that I did it was my kids wanted me to, we stay in contact that way. One is away at college and it is just easier for us that way.
I also work for a company that has informed us while working we must remain professional in all aspects even in PM's..because they monitor those also!
Wow!
I know I won't be sending any PM's to another employee.
1 person likes this
@danishcanadian (28955)
• Canada
22 Feb 10
I have heard of sites like that, where they automatically send e-mails to everyone in my contact information. My husband got into one of those sites, and it spammed everyone. I will not sign up for a new social networking site until someone I know tells me that it won't do that to my address book.
1 person likes this
