The Ephemerist

(UPDATE 20070924 - iDate Press Release discussed here)
(UPDATE 20070902 - new info here)

Chances are you just received an email from me inviting you to join something called Quechup.com, a new (to me at least) social networking platform. In my professional as well as private life, sites like these have become more and more important. And since I work in interactive advertising, and I am constantly checking out new social platforms to find out what new features they come up with and how they could be put to use for our clients. When a dear friend of mine invited me to join Quechup.com (without her knowledge, as it turned out), I tried it out.

I’ve been online now for about 15 years, and still, I’ve been had like a newbie. I am frustrated, furious, whatever but I can only expect anger, ridicule and a total loss of respect from colleagues, correspondents and friends.

The long and short : disregard and delete any invite you have received from me, inviting you to join Quechup.com. I did not send you this email, nor did I knowingly approve of it being sent to you. What happened was this.

During the signup process, Quechup.com suggests it search your address book to check if some of your email contacts have already signed up as well, so as to give the networking process a head start. We’ve seen this before with bonafide websites like LinkedIn or Facebook (which, incidentally, i do vouch for, since they have never sent me any spam nor sent mail on behalf of me without my consent — so far, that is). So call me gullible, I gave it my details and indeed, found a couple of people already on the site (amongst whom the woman who had invited me).

What the site doesn’t mention, however, is that each and every address in your address book is invited to join as well, as if you agreed to it.

I smelled fire when I received invites at some of my other email addresses, and quickly checked the mailbox I had used to sign up to Quechup.com. No less than 395 out-of-office replies awaited me there. By the next morning, I had received about 500 other replies, asking what this was all about, ridiculing me for being so stupid or actually spewing abuse for sending that email. I have since activated my own out-of-office assistant, with an apology in the message.

What is even more troubling, in my opinion, is that the site then goes on to search for any offline mail clients, such as Outlook or Outlook Express on your PC and suggest doing the same search with the address data it finds there. As I don’t use any offline clients, I didn’t use this “feature”. I can only shudder at the effect that would have, and what other havock sites like these can wreck in your email client.

I have deleted my own membership. If you or anyone receive an invitation to join, from me or anybody else, I advise you to delete the email. I am trying to find out if I have a legal case here.

I am deeply sorry for the harrassment and the inconvenience. My sincere and humble apologies. Now, go back and berate me…