When we provide our e-mail addresses to a company, we do so with the understanding that the company will use them appropriately. Recently, LinkedIn users sued the company amid accusations that it is harvesting e-mails in order to send marketing e-mails. The users alleged that LinkedIn accesses their e-mail address book, and that it subsequently spams their contacts with LinkedIn marketing e-mails. This happens despite the fact that LinkedIn assures users when they log in that it will not use their e-mails without permission.
LinkedIn denies the allegations, and it states that it never uses members' e-mail addresses without their permission. While this may be true, the statement may be perceived as misleading. When you sign up for LinkedIn, it asks to search your e-mail contacts so that you can link up with people you know on the network. LinkedIn then requires you to opt out from contacting these contacts. If you do not opt out, it will send repeated e-mails to your contacts asking them to use the service. To users that were not paying attention and did not realize that they had to opt out, this gives the impression that LinkedIn has hacked into their e-mail account in order to spam their contacts.
I think companies need to tread carefully in this area. Many people do not pay attention to instructions, and requiring them to opt out of e-mail marketing inevitably leads to unwanted e-mails. My intuition is that unwanted e-mails cause companies to lose more in goodwill than they gain in new business from such practices, although I have not seen the numbers to back this up. I think best practice would be to require consumers to opt in rather than to opt out of e-mail marketing, particularly when the company is e-mailing their contacts rather than e-mailing them.
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