Done With Plaxo
Filed under General Journal.
Here’s my rant for the day. Several years ago, I signed up for this online service called Plaxo, which allows you to synchronize your contacts in multiple places and automatically updates the contact information of other people in your address book who are also Plaxo members. At the time I thought it was a great idea to keep your info up-to-date. Their software plugs into Outlook as well so anytime one of your friends updates their address or phone number, you are automatically updated. I still think it’s a cool idea but unfortunately, just like many other companies such as AOL, they took what was a good idea and made it annoying as hell by taking over your computer with a bunch of other programs, plugins, toolbars and widgets. Now I see Plaxo buttons everywhere in my Outlook and in my AIM messenger and I’m sending and receiving updates for things I didn’t intend on sending and it’s really really pissing me off.
Today was the last straw so my Plaxo account is now deleted! I received an email from Plaxo with another update… here’s what it said:
How in the hell does Plaxo even know I HAVE a Flickr account?! Apparently, this is their new “Pulse” service, but I didn’t opt-in to anything. So did this auto-update go out to all my friends and contacts without my permission? Who knows. This happened once before as well and it almost drove me to delete my account that time, but I stuck with them thinking it was just an isolated incident and probably some option I forgot to uncheck. Last time I installed AIM instant messenger, one of the screens during installation asked me for my Plaxo email and my existing AIM screen name. I entered it without really knowing or thinking what would happen, after all it was just a step during the installation and did not display any documentation. Well all of the sudden I started getting instant messages from people who I did not want to know my screen-name. Even more frustrating was that my personal AIM screen-name was broadcast out to all of my work contacts in my Outlook. Sure, I finally figured out that there was some setting to turn this off buried deep in my Plaxo settings menu, but it was ON my default. So the burden of responsibility was on me to turn off the privacy settings instead of just being afforded the choice of enabling those settings that I wanted later on. Had I known during the simple installation process that my entering in my Plaxo email address was going to result in an automatic email out to all of my contacts informing them of my new AIM account, then I surely wouldn’t have done that. Even more annoying is that the step during installation didn’t look optional at all. The only way around it was to cancel the screen, which the average person would take to mean, cancel the entire installation process.
So now apparently Plaxo is gathering up all of the associated social networking tools that I use and linking them to my known email addresses and consolidating everything I do on all of them into one nice little update for the world to see. Plaxo can keep it’s dirty little hands off my damn “PULSE”. I don’t mind using things like Twitter or MySpace or Facebook to keep my friends and family up-to-date on things, but with those applications, I have control over what is being shared. Plaxo just took it upon itself to pull up the blinds on my Internet living room for all to see.
It’s unfortunate really, because I consider myself an early adopter of technology and I love trying out cool new websites, applications and gadgets. I’ll try anything once to see if it has a use. But now there’s no chance of me wanting anything to do with anything Plaxo related. It’s the same reason I cancelled my AOL account a few years ago. I was tired of having to go through and delete a bunch of crap from my computer every time I did a new installation. They just assume you want all of their shortcuts and toolbars and default search engines and settings.
I think these companies like Plaxo need to start putting a little more thought into their default privacy settings. Just because I’m out on the “public” Internet, doesn’t mean I want to sit naked in the town square.
On September 18th, 2007 at 8:02 pm
Why are you so worked up about Flickr showing up in Plaxo?
You have it posted to your homepage, it’s no more being “naked in the town square” than someone looking at your site.
On September 18th, 2007 at 10:53 pm
It’s the principle of the thing. I believe in the choice to opt-in or opt-out. The fact that I have Flickr posted for everyone to see is different then Plaxo sending out a notification to everyone in my address book that I just updated my Flickr account with pictures. It comes from spending 4 years in the closet in the Army and being tired of having to manage 2 different lives. I don’t do it anymore but I don’t want Plaxo hijacking my address book or have to think through whether someone is a work contact or a personal contact. A few years ago, sending an update to my address book announcing that I posted pictures of men in their underwear on my Flickr account, could have been jail time.
On September 18th, 2007 at 11:23 pm
Apparently, I’m not the only one who shares this opinion: http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/03/22/plaxo-now-with-less-evil/
On September 18th, 2007 at 11:26 pm
And again: http://www.crunchnotes.com/?p=109
On September 19th, 2007 at 12:39 pm
I think you forgot this one:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/07/18/plaxo-could-be-the-open-source-facebook/
Complain to Flickr if you don’t think someone should be able to find you based on your email address - I don’t see an option in my account to do so. There’s an option for “everything *except* e-mail address”, but that sort of defeats the purpose of limiting a search. Your best bet would be to sign up with a different email address like jpmflickr@jpatrickm.com that pipes to your main mailbox, then if you start to get spam or anything of the sort you will know the origin and can act appropriately. Since the address doesn’t match any other address you use, you have the added bonus of public anonymization. You can act publicly and do whatever you want, but each “persona” is distinct and none are associated with any other unless you make the association yourself. As you said, you “have control over what is being shared” - you just have to control it.
To address another point, Plaxo doesn’t “[send] out a notification to everyone in my address book.” I’ve used the service for a little over a year and haven’t had a single e-mail come from Plaxo to anyone in my address book without me explicitly asking for it. Has anyone you know actually gotten a notification about your Flickr posts, or is this just a knee-jerk reaction to something you haven’t taken the time to understand?
On September 19th, 2007 at 5:55 pm
I don’t know for certain whether anyone in my Plaxo contacts list actually received a Flickr update email, so it was a knee-jerk reaction, so that’s valid. However, I used it as an example of another Plaxo “spam” message that appeared without my permission. The assumption I made was because this DID happen the first time around, when all of my work associates got an update with my personal AIM screen-name. It was hugely annoying. So when I got the Flickr update, push-came-to-shove. Thanks for the interesting debate