StumbleUpon Sends Invites To Everyone You've Ever Emailed Without Your Permission
Oh, how embarrassing. Travel writer Christopher Elliott signed up for StumbleUpon and due to some pre-checked boxes and a programming error, accidentally invited everyone he had ever emailed to join StumbleUpon.
Yikes. From Elliot.org:
I told the site that I had a Gmail account, and it offered to send out two categories of invitations on my behalf. Either invite friends who already have StumbleUpon accounts (good idea) or invite everyone in your address book -- nearly 9,000 people -- to sign up for StumbleUpon (not a good idea). I unchecked the second option and then scrolled up and checked on the first.Now Christopher is concerned that StumbleUpon might use the purloined emails for various forms of evil. C'mon StumbleUpon, say it ain't so.The system then automatically, and without my explicit approval, checked everything. By the time I knew what was happening, everyone was getting an invitation to join StumbleUpon.
Now, if you're a friend of mine, you can probably just laugh this off. But this e-mail went to everyone I had sent a message to in the last four years. And there were people in there who I'm sure did not want to hear from me.
To them, let me say again, I'm sorry.
Unethical pre-checking: How StumbleUpon hijacked my address book [Elliott] (Thanks, Nancy!)
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Comments:
I remember when stumbleupon was fun. After a while though I just started getting the same unfunny shit that i'd already given a thumbs down to 20 times already. Oh look, another stupid viral video. YAY
Eeeevil.
Consumerist needs to create a link that's always accessible from the homepage that lists especially eggregarious companies that deservet the Consumerist Death Penalty - Never Do Business With. Ever. Sort of like a permanent penalty box.
And this company - and the similar one that did similar things - be the first couple entries.
A programmer at StumbleUpon is timidly saying "Did I do that?"
There was an article in a recent Washington Post about the same thing happening on Facebook.
I was wondering who the heck those people were sending me Stumbled Upon stuff. They're probably people who have emailed me about websites years ago.
Sounds like Quechup.
Ugh. What an awful program. I hope none of my contacts does this and gets my personal email on a spammer's list.
I wonder if we have all the details though.
"I unchecked the second option and then scrolled up and checked on the first. The system then automatically, and without my explicit approval, checked everything. By the time I knew what was happening..."
Hm. For this to take effect, wouldn't he still have had to press "okay" or "send" or otherwise submit the web form? So it "checked everything" but he didn't notice and finished the invite process? I haven't used this product, so I'm not sure I understand what happened.
All networking programs do this. friendster, multiply, even the cruddy ones that nobody's heard of. Pisses me off to no end. But they ask you for your email address username and password! Or is this part of google's plan to take over the world?
@meiran: Or that poor guy who took his "engaged" notice down from FB, omnly to have it automatically email all their friends that they had broken up...
I don't understand. How does StumbleUpon access your Gmail address book?
Wow, my first submit makes it on! Enough to make me come out of hiding - w00t! A little known fact about Stumble Upon is that actually, much of the stuff isn't randomly "stumbled" upon...according to this:
the sites pay for guaranteed exposure. I think it's a great business model, one that really doesn't have to infiltrate people's gmail contacts for success (obvs, this practice will actually hurt them).
Personally, I love Stumble. I stumble around the internet all the time. But I just do it to surf. I don't send emails with it or even post anything to a page like a lot of people do. I just like that I can hit a button and get a laugh.
That happened to me on Facebook. The email went out to some of my graduate school professors and other people who I believe would never use the site. Quite embaressing because they probably thought I was serious.
@SVreader:
I wonder if we have all the details though.I haven't used it either, but speaking from the side of a web developer (who isn't, these days?) it's entirely possible to make a form check everything (or otherwise manipulate the data) when you click the submit button. I actually know of a form that does this (to encrypt passwords before they're sent)
[...] "The system then automatically, and without my explicit approval, checked everything. By the time I knew what was happening..."
Hm. For this to take effect, wouldn't he still have had to press "okay" or "send" or otherwise submit the web form? So it "checked everything" but he didn't notice and finished the invite process? I haven't used this product, so I'm not sure I understand what happened.
Why did he allow Gmail to add every person he'd ever e-mailed to his contacts list?
Didn't Ebay buy StumbleUpon to increase auction hits?