Sleazy Bravenet.com practice
Sleazy Bravenet.com practice
- Subject: Sleazy Bravenet.com practice
- From: Richard Huggins <email@hidden>
- Date: Thu, 15 Jul 2004 08:53:29 -0500
Some of you may know (or already use) that Bravenet.com offers a myriad of
free (with paid versions in nearly every case) website components that can
be added to a given website. I considered using one of those --their
classifieds ad service-- to add a classified ads section to our user group
website. I elected to use the free version, despite the advertising it
includes.
When I got everything all set up, I tested it by entering a dummy ad myself.
I discovered to my anger that the ad entry page includes a number of
marketing options that the person entering the ad (and thus giving his
e-mail address) can choose from, most of which were not pre-selected but
SOME of which were. In other words, if the person entering the ad didn't
notice (and they are "below the fold" by the way) that some "marketing
options" (to use Yahoo's sleazy term for this sort of thing) were already
selected, that person would inadvertently be authorizing is e-mail address
to be added to advertising lists of companies who have "partnered" (don't
you just love that term?) with Bravenet. com in this effort.
Such a practice of pre-selected (in other words, opt out) marketing options
--first made "famous" by Yahoo in the process of setting up Yahoo IDs-- is
abhorrent. For that reason, if any of you use Bravenet.com for any services
on your web site, I urge you to thoroughly investigate as to if at any point
those who use your service are subjecting themselves to having their e-mail
address captured and added to yet another advertising list.
--Richard Huggins
Tyler Area Macintosh Users (TAMU), Tyler, TX
My e-mail <email@hidden>
******
Visit the TAMU Web Site: <
http://www.tyler.net/tamu>
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