During some research on the current state of on-line gift registries, we came across the site www.zebo.com. It seemed like an interesting site to explore but it was brought to my attention today that shortly after my friend logged in (through her MSN password), ZEBO blasted out emails to every single person in her contact book, as if my friend had sent the email. But my friend had never approved or sent the emails. This is a definite annoying violation and reason to have hesitation when joining and online community that requires you dish out personal inviation to be "in the network". While this isn't a pure 2.0 issue, it begs the question of privacy.
This actually reminded me of some similiar experiences people have had with Linked In. Haven't we all received emails from less than close acquitances, or even acquitances of distant acquitances to join their "Linked In" network? Sure that's the point of social networking but it just raises a flag when it seems personal information is not being kept private.
So while the default checked box that mandates a user "opt out", may seem like a smart move on the part of the marketer, it is simply not fair to bury it on the site so by accident somebody's entire address book gets spammed. And worse of the spams seem as if they are coming from a friend. Emails read "Hey friend, Debbie wants you to join XWZ and blah blah' Then followed but some jargon like "You got this email because someone who knows you sent you an invitation to join their online shopping community at ZEBO.com".
Guess again. Delete.
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