This morning I got a request from a friend to connect through Reunion.com. Seemed innocent enough, and I fell for it. Which is to say, they got one of my email addresses. Nothing more. Far as I know. But somehow they put X and N together and began spamming people I know.
Now I have five emails from friends, so far, plus one each from my wife and my sister, each with copies of spams from Reunion.com. The reunion.com emailings go like this:
Hi, |
I looked for you on Reunion.com, but you weren’t there. I use Reunion.com to search for lost friends and contacts, and to stay connected with people I know, so please connect with me. |
— Doc |
RESPOND TO DOC: |
Connect with Doc Now! – You’ll also find out if anyone else is searching for you. |
I left out the links.
Oh, I also got one like the above, from myself. Another other notified me that “You’ve just been added to Doc Searls’s Reunion.com Address Book.”
What address book? And how exactly did they get that list of contacts?
Fortunately all those friends and relatives who wrote back were smarter than I was and saw the email from reunion.com as the scam it is. Others? I dunno. Live and re-learn, I guess.
Here’s the Google lookup of Reunion.com and spam. Plenty there.
I am among the least litigious people on Earth. But I can’t help but wonder … Could I (or we) sue these bastards for false representation? Invasion of privacy?
[Later, on 28 October 2008…] Since this post currently comes up first in Google searches for Reunion.com spam, it’s a lightning rod for continued complaints about Reunion.com, which is obviously still an asshole company. Though that they may be, I’m not going to sue them, since I have lots of better things to do. So I just posted this update, and suggest readers go to the Wikipedia article on Reunion.com for details about what’s wrong with the company and what little you can do about it other than avoid and complain.
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