In Joi: Opting out of Plaxo Jay explains why he'll never use Plaxo, and Stacy of Plaxo explains why he's maligning the service incorrectly.

The platform issue remains.

Which brings up the question, if you want influencers to join and write about your service, maybe that 3% of the user base should be catered to (i'm speaking of the not-so-silent minority of mac users). Usually it's not a financially sensible thing to do, code a unique base to 3% of users, at least not until your numbers hit millions, but if that 3% is noisy bloggers...

Noisy bloggers? Now come on... How is THAT fair? ;-)

noisy bloggers are squeaky wheels, and you know what that gets you....

oil!

I'm only noisy when I'm tipsy. So what you're saying is that I should lay off the sauce when I want to post to my site?

By the way, nice use of the word "assholian". :-)

I've always considered you saucey.

I kinda like this bi-blog conversation. how very 2004!

your post is an excellent revelation of what is problematic in SN's and should be required reading for those who wish to build them.

for all it's problems, I think Plaxo is the most savvy.

To: Stacy Martin/Plaxo Privacy Officer

Stacy,
Can you expalin to me why after receiving a request to update my email info from a Plaxo user I am now receiving spam emails. One a day every day since the Plaxo users request. Haven't had any spam in at least a year. I'm very, very "peeved" about this.

I tried the op-out - and they say that
The e-mail address you are trying to opt-out from (xxx@xxxxx.xxxx) has already been claimed by another user (possibly you). You will not be able to opt-out at this time.

But I still get their e-mails - so what do I do now?

Then I tried to recover my account login to change my personal information - and is asking me a personal question - it obvioulsy does not recognise my answer - so what do I do now?

Then I tried to contact them - the last alternative is to send an email to password@plaxo.com from my email program - so they will have again my email addres and I bet they will ask me all sort of personal information in order to "remove" me from their system - so what do I do now?

Sorry I cannot trust this system and the risk is far to great!

I can't have all my contacts pulled by these guys from my computer - whaever the good intentions - and trust that their system of privacy protection will never fail and that no "haker" will ever break their system.

M

Posted by: M on April 30, 2004 03:06 AM

And I continue my Plaxo saga ....

Tired of waiting some response to my previous quest for my login information I manage to guess my password, so I’m in now, lets change that personal information.

Unfortunately Plaxo tells me that I can't!!!!!

Apparently I have disable this option when I installed their software a few months ago - Yes I did that and then immediately uninstalled it !

So now if I want to change my personal information in their online system I MUST REINSTALL THEIR SOFTWARE that will surely collect again all my contacts - now way!

I was thinking this was a badly design idea, not I am now thinking this is a criminal scam!

Any ideas where to go from here?

M

M: I apologize if there has been any misunderstanding regarding how to
discontinue your Plaxo account.

Like many other Internet-based services, Plaxo has a client software component which interacts with your account located within our service (and servers). Removing the software component from your local system does not delete or discontinue the active membership account. This allows members the ability to use the software on different systems without having to delete their membership. I suspect that while you removed the software, your account was apparently not removed from our servers and thus remained active. This also explains why when you attempted to opt-out from the service, you were unable to since your account remained active from your initial installation.

The simple solution is to remove your existing account from our service. Proper instructions for discontinuing your account can be found on our Support site. Simply put, to discontinue your account with Plaxo, you can simply go to the URL: https://www.plaxo.com/delete_account and follow the instructions located on the page. Since you know your account name and password, you should be able to delete your account with out any problems. Once you have deleted your account, you can then perform the opt-out.

If you have any questions, please contact me at smartin @t plaxo.com.

Stacy Martin
Plaxo Privacy Officer

M,

The reason that your opt-out failed was because you had already joined the service and had claimed/validated this email address. So, of course we can allow you to opt-out this email address w/o signing into the site. Otherwise, anyone could opt-out anyone else at will. This a basic secrurity mechanism.

Then, when you tried to sign into the service and forgot your Password and Security Question, you somehow blame us (and suggest that this is more evidence of our untrustworthiness). We require passwords and security questions to protect our member's information and privacy--seems like the right thing to do imo.

Then you somehow remember your password, but were not able to change your info. This is because you specifially chose "No Web Access" when you registered and joined the service, and of course could not access your account on the web. This is what you asked us to do.

So far, I see no evidence of any Plaxo wrongdoing.

Now, you have two choices:

1. Delete your Plaxo account and all of the data associated with it -- I strongly recommend this option:

--> https://www.plaxo.com/signin?r=/delete_account
[btw: this will require you to enter your password again]

2. use the Outlook plugin that you installed to change your information

If you don't wish to use our software or service, that's fine and I respect your choice. However, please don't blame us for you forgetting your password or suggest that we have done anything wrong by building a secure and professional site.

If anyone has any actual evidence of wrongdoing or evil at Plaxo, I would love to hear it. But, it seems unfair to blast us for a crime that we have not committed and really have showed no signs of committing.

Again, I respect your right to not use our software and I encourage anyone who does not wish to receive update requests to opt out of the service: http://www.plaxo.com/opt_out -- we really, really do not want our members sending emails to people that do not wish to receive them.

[of course, some people then claim that this is another ploy by plaxo to steal your info...sigh]

Rikk Carey
rikk@plaxo.com
vp of engineering
Plaxo, Inc.

P.S. If you have any difficulty deleting your account, please contact me directly and I will personally delete your account and all associated data.

yogo finkelstien,

There is no correlation to you receiving a Plaxo update request and receiving spam. The fact that you have not received spam in over a year is very strange imo -- where do you live Siberia? ;-) [just kidding]

There have been a lot of recent, effective worldwide virus attacks that have resulted in a large increase in spam everywhere. I know that I am getting a lot more spam than I have in the past and expect that's what's happening to you.

The bottom line is that spamming our users and the friends of our users is not a very good busines model (as well as a lousy thing to do). First, if it were true, it would become obvious and we would be exposed quickly. Second, our investors are the people behind Yahoo!, PayPal, and Google and they build businesses that last -- sending spam does not qualify.

Rikk Carey
vp of engineering
rikk@plaxo.com
Plaxo, Inc.

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