Aral Balkan

Stephanie just DMed me on Twitter, linking to Dave's post about how Plaxo appears to be releasing user's email addresses.

My gut feeling towards Plaxo is the same as the one I have for Real (RealVideo, etc.) -- I just don't feel a sense of trust because of how they behaved in the past. I was giving Plaxo a second chance since people told me they'd changed, etc., but -- really -- I'm on way too many social networks and I don't need my email address being wantonly exposed around the web by some third party.

Needless to say, I just deleted my account using the Plaxo account deletion page.

Comments

• I deleted my account as soon as I heard they were being bought by Comcast :)

  by Ash on 2008-06-18 16:54:30

• You know they were bought by Comcast, right? Better get the heck out of there.

  by Stefan Richter on 2008-06-19 13:15:14

• Yeah, I don’t know if I can fully trust them. I read a post on eWeek that there is a new personal information network called Gimigo. I think I will give it a try…I just don’t know if I can trust Plaxo again after this.

  by Greg on 2008-06-20 19:14:38

• Okay this is.. odd! This can't be good. I've always been very positive about plaxo, I really like what they do, but this certainly makes you reconsider that feeling. I hope they pick it up, spread the word! I won't be deleting my account though, but I'll be on the lookout for more plaxo failures. Thx for tweeting/blogging this!

  by Sarah on 2008-06-18 11:16:52

• Thanks for the heads up on Twitter, Aral - I've already deleted my account and blogged it to let others know.

  by Brian Dusablon on 2008-06-18 12:32:12

• John, VP of Marketing has comment over on my blog about the issue. Basically, it's fixed: http://builtbydave.co.uk/2008/06/18/plaxo-release-email-addresses/#comment-547

  by David Stone on 2008-06-19 10:01:39

• This is the answer that Plaxo gave me when I asked them about this : "Hello Pablo, Thank you for contacting Plaxo Customer Care. Plaxo will not share your information with any third party without your permission. Sharing your information with your permission From time to time, you may be given the option to have your contact information shared with third parties, such as our printing partner or holiday cards partner. Prior to visiting these third party sites, Plaxo will ask for your permission to pass your return address and any shipping information to these partner sites to facilitate your transaction. The sole purpose of passing this information is to make your purchasing process easier by pre-populating the shipping info on their site. Plaxo is committed to the following Plaxo Privacy Principles Your Information is your own and you decide who will have access to it. You maintain ownership rights to Your Information, even if there is a business transition or policy change. You may add, delete, or modify Your Information at any time. Plaxo will not update or modify Your Information without your permission. Plaxo will not sell, exchange, or otherwise share Your Information with third parties, unless required by law or in accordance with your instructions. Plaxo does not send spam, maintain spam mailing lists, or support the activities of spammers. Plaxo is focused on building a profitable, viable business and community that our members can trust. Compromising that trust by selling or sharing member information would not only violate our own Privacy Policy, a legally binding document, but would undermine our own code of ethics and ability to become a successful company. Please let me know if you have any further questions. Thank you. Chris Plaxo Customer Care"

  by aSH on 2008-06-19 12:20:27