Posted by Joe on 18 Sep 2007 1:09 pm.
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.
The pictures are from 2 different clubs: The Flame where we had a Pimp’s and Ho’s party and costume contest. I hosted the contest, which is why my costume looked so damn fly!! haha
