Is Avi certain that permission wasn't granted somewhere deep in a EULA?

If this is as described, there are Federal anti-spam laws, Pro Softnet could be prosecuted for a felony.

Unless of course Avi would rather be the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit?

@SkokieGuy: I wish there were some "obvious crap" law that required things like that to be FRONT AND CENTER in HUGE TEXT so people don't get screwed for not reading 20 pages of EULA.

Cousin Avi* should report this to Apple. I am sure they would yank it from the AppStore once its confirmed.

* cyber cookies for anyone that gets the movie reference WITHOUT Googling.

Shouldn't Apple's iPhone App watchdogs be contacted about this? I bet iDrive Lite is violating Apple's policies...

Boo. I use these guys for quite a few customer backups. Let's hope this was the mistake of an overly-eager intern or similar. (crossing my fingers)

@dohtem: Fish and Chips, Cup O Tea Mary F-ing Poppins, London

You missed the point. Avi may or may not have volunteered for spam, but his contacts certainly didn't. They are violating federal law here people. No doubt about it.

@katstermonster: Actually there is. Software vendors are not allowed to put "unexpected" things in the EULA such as "By installing this software, you give us the right to steal your credit card info."

@SigmundTheSeaMonster: Enough people complain, this will definitely get pulled by Apple.

Make a video and say they broke your guitar

Use Google sync to backup your contacts, it's cross-platform (I use it on my BB), it works great, it's free, and I'm pretty sure they aren't going to spam anyone. You do have to have a Google Account, but if you're backing up your Google contacts, you're already there.

[www.google.com]

@Dennis: Google sync + blackberry + BB Desktop sync = headaches and lost contacts.

@SkokieGuy: Avi can not give permission for third parties not involved in a transaction. As soon as the vendor starts sending out e-mail advertisements to the contacts they harvested from Avi they're potentially breaking the law. They need a direct relationship with the recipients of the e-mail. Harvesting e-mails from a third party doesn't constitute any sort of relationship.

Now if the vendor filtered Avi's contacts and discovered that some of those contacts were already customers of the vendor then they could send an e-mail to them saying "Hey, we just noticed that Avi is now a customer!" that would be one thing. But blindly spamming contacts is another thing altogether.

So since I've gotten email from him, does that explain why I just got two of those emails? I wouldn't be surprised if every Aviary member got them.

@dohtem: Sucks. I don't use Desktop sync very often (Read: never), and I've been very fortunate with GSync. I also had a local backup of most of my contacts anyway, but it can be a real PITA to recover contacts...

We use iBackup for a lot of our computers at work. We've had great luck with Pro Softnet's sales and support. Hopefully this gets resolved ASAP.

@computerwiz3491: Huh...I wonder if "spamming all your contacts" falls under that. I'd hope so. It doesn't sound like Avi expected it!

@dohtem:

It was a funny angle!

There were some limited number of referrals sent out by the lite application and this process has been stopped. However, it was indicated during the lite signup process that referral emails may be sent out. We apologize for this case.

IDrive Support

So supposedly offensive content like NIN's Downward Spiral (that actually isn't offensive at all) gets rejected, but potentially felonious spammers get the thumbs up?

I knew there was a reason I didn't trust Apple's judgment...

Then again they did spend 10 years making a prettier, shinier exterior for their hardware while ignoring the utilitarian concept of having more than one mouse button. Guess I shouldn't be surprised.

This is why you should never keep your contacts in your phone or your computer. Memorize them.

@dohtem: - "We've got sandy beaches."
- "So? Who the fuck wants to see 'em?"

@katstermonster:

Considering the standard "click-through" EULAs is only barely even legally binding, no, I doubt doing something like this is legal even if the EULA mentions it.

The power in most EULAs is limited to things mentioned on the box/sales agreement, what exists in copyright law, and things that are obvious (like reverse engineering to crack the software).

They are often seen as contracts of adhesion when they get out of hand. Which basically renders them invalid apart from the above.

[en.wikipedia.org]

@Ferris152: "NIN's Downward Spiral (that actually isn't offensive at all) "

Ok while I get your point, and Downward Spiral was my very first NIN album and I LOVED it to death in 8th grade, saying its NOT offensive is a bit much.

That album is offensive as hell, though completely in the right way. Me and My Gun? Closer? yeah... those songs arn't offensive at all.

@dohtem: You big-balled SOB!

@Ferris152: The Mighty Mouse IS a two-button mouse. You just have to set the OS to recognize it as such, as one-button is the default.

There is now a post on his blog claiming to be from iDrive.
They claim he agreed to the referral emails when he sighned up. If he did, then it's on his shoulders.

@dohtem: Anything to declare?

@ShiningSquirrel: No it isn't, that kind of behavior is unacceptable and should never happen -- no one would ever agree to such terms, and it obviously happened without his knowledge so if any "notice" exists of such egregious behavior, it was not noticeable enough.

@ShiningSquirrel: I have a hard time thinking it's on his shoulders. He may be in possession of a bunch of emails, but at the end of the day, the people who got spammed never opted into such communication. Whether or not this behavior constitutes a felony, it's a morally wrong thing for a company to do.

If I decided one day to send an email to some company and CC my colleagues, there's no way in heck I would appreciate it if that company decided to spam my colleagues with third-party junk.

Avi should have done two things:

1) Read at least the first page of reviews for any apps before installing. A couple of them mentioned the spamming.

2. Use his phone to sync up with Google Contacts automatically. I keep all my contacts in Google, and whenever I plug the phone in it syncs up anything I changed either from the computer or the phone. It's super nice.

@ShiningSquirrel: This sounds a lot like the whole Quechup fiasco. They blindsided a lot of tech-savvy people with their allegedly user-approved email spam.

The only terms I could find on their site are for iDrive, no terms are available for iDrive Lite (unless you can see them after signing up from your iPhone?)

Give me liberty (from SPAM) or give me death!

you sir are a spam patriot!

@thebigbluecheez:

Yeah, don't go to England.

@dohtem: I chuckled.

@Jim Topoleski: Offensive to whom? You? Just because YOU find it offensive doesn't mean someone else will. Offensive is subjective.

It's not like Trent was telling people to shoot themselves in the face. And Closure was not/is not offensive.

The Apple Store application approval team earns another fail. Nice to know they're protecting people from boobies, but they can't seem to keep malware-style apps off the phone & touch.

@ShiningSquirrel: If that were true, that loophole that would've already been exploited to bypass anti-spam laws.

iDrive, or any company for example, would need only a "customer" with a large contact list to sign up and agree to let that list be used for spamming.

@pegr:
What are you talking about? Federal law (the "CAN-SPAM" law) was specifically written to override any state legislation and ensure that it remained legal for anyone to send unsolicited commercial email. It's called "CAN SPAM" not "CAN'T SPAM" All you have to do is comply with the law is do some window dressing stuff like an opt-out link, physical address, etc. Don't worry, it doesn't matter whether the victim actually opts out or not. Just change the name of your firm each time right before you send out another spam message to that address.

@Ferris152:

The real problem is that PC users cannot understand that the Mac OS was and is designed for use with EXTENSIVE keyboard shortcuts. These are significantly faster than doing the same operations via right clicking. Windows users are not used to keyboard shortcuts because Windows does everything in a long and convoluted way. It's cool with me if you like taking extra steps to do whatever you need to do, but I prefer keeping my work flowing.

@ShiningSquirrel: As others pointed out further up the thread: Even if Avi was duped into giving permission for them to read his contact list, he doesn't have the right to opt in his contacts for spam.

So if the post *is* from iDrive, that makes them either liars or fools.

@Dennis: Yeah Google Sync works well, I just wished it synced Tasks too. I think Outlook might be my problem. I have gotten too many duplicate contacts and/or deleted contacts.

I seriously doubt that letter was from iDrive. I just emailed their CEO and asked them to post a notice on their company blog confirming they are suspending the practice, to see if it's real.

Hi Raghu,

Yesterday I woke up to find that iDrive had spammed all of my personal and company contacts that I'd synchronized using iDrive Lite.

I used iDrive on a word-of-mouth recommendation from a friend who had heard great things about it in Lifehacker. Not because I had been spammed by it. Actually, I would NEVER use a service that had spammed me and can't imagine anyone who would, save for people with erect1le dysfunction.

I want to point out 4 important things to you:

1) You will lose far more users than you will gain through this practice. I will personally make it a point to publicize my experience to prevent other people from suffering the same type of embarrassment and loss of reputation as I had to go through when my contacts all asked me why they were being bombarded with iDrive spam. I have posted it online, will contact Apple and will make sure that this behavior gets seen by potential customers. I just saw it picked up in the Consumerist as well.

2) No consumer in their right mind would ever agree to let you spam their friends. Anyone who agrees to a term like this in your EULA has simply overlooked it and it is evil to take advantage of that fact. Simply put, it's not a practice you should ever do, even with permission.

3) If enough people report iDrive as spam (and they will), even your legitimate emails will be blocked by all major ISPs.

4) This activity is actually illegal. You can't spam someone else without their permission. Getting my permission to spam my friend (accidental or not) is inconsequential. Without my friend's permission you cannot send him promotional emails.

I am especially upset because iDrive is otherwise an awesome product and as an entrepreneur myself, I respect good products. I would have paid for it happily had I not been so betrayed.

I hope you put a stop to this immediately and I would like you to address it on your company blog, if you really have stopped the practice, as "idrive support" posted in the comments in my blog. I think it's the only way to really make things right.

Thanks,
Avi Muchnick
CEO / Aviary.com

Raghu wrote back 15 minutes later:

Avi,

First, I apologize for the event. I really do. We also posted a
comment on your blog earlier today. Obviously the referral system is
not working as intended, and we have put a stop to this.

We have only a few lines of agreement ( when one installs the IDrive
Lite app ) which includes the line related to sending referral emails
to contacts. While if we were to implement this now, we would do this
differently and entirely get rid of the referral part, we did our best
to inform. Also, this referral was run only for a few users, and has
been stopped.

If you would like us to send an apology to your contacts, we can do so.

Regards,

Raghu Kulkarni

Yes, we will also have an update on our company blog shortly indicating this.

@SkokieGuy: Out of all the apps I've installed on my ipod touch, not one of them had an elua that I know of. You just touch the install button on the app store and it installs. That's it. There isn't one when you run the apps either.

Unless I'm seriously missing something.

@Avi Muchnick: Dear Mr. Kulkarni,

Please see item #4 on Avi's previous email. This time read it slowly.

Also, "send an apology to your contacts" WTF? Thanks but no thanks. His contact probably don't want anything else from you at all, ever. Especially a "We're so sorry, here's 5% off! and a sales pitch!"

@trujunglist: Um... I'm a multimedia designer who uses a Mac and I need a 2nd (and 3rd) mouse button for my work. How do you edit in 3d with keyboard shortcuts?