I’m usually really good about filtering out the spam from the rest of my “good” emails. I keep two accounts: one for my personal emails and the other for registrations, sign-up, etc where I know my email address is going to be sold to a third-party to send me things like a “Free PS3″, when they become available. I’m pretty good about not falling for that stuff.
Then just recently, I got an email from a friend who I haven’t seen in a long time with the title “Let’s Share Photos”. This is through my personal account, which usually does a great job of filtering out spam. I opened it thinking that I would be able to see this person’s shared photos. I went to a website called Ringo.com and they asked me for an email address (for registration purposes) and a password. Now, what I sometimes do is to use the same password for registration as my login to access my email.
When I did that, it logged into my email account, extracted all my contacts’ email addresses, and sent them invites to “Let’s Share Photos”.
WTF?!?!
Needless to say, I was pissed. I’m still in the process of emailing all my contacts from my email account telling them that the “Let’s Share Photos” is spam and not to register. I went through their “contact us” section on their website, told them to cancel my account, and reiterated how furious I was and how this was just poor marketing. Not to mention an invasion of privacy.
