[geek] Privacy? You don't need no steenkin' privacy!

[UPDATE: Stacy Martin, Privacy Officer at Plaxo, was kind enough to stop by and clarify things for me in a comment attached to this post. Short answer: if you "opt-out" of Plaxo, any such Update Requests just go into a black hole. Period. Done. No validation of any kind. I like that; good design on Plaxo's part. I wish it had been conveyed on their site and/or in the initial emails that I got, but still: the fact that the internet can provide this kind of responsiveness on the part of a company is, in my book, a Good Thing. Thanks again, Stacy.] So I got some spam this weekend. There's a shock, right? Well, this bit o' garbage came about through a component of the much-vaunted 'Web 2.0'. WTF is 'Web 2.0'? In short, it's marketing weasel bullshit for networking tools, online services, AJAX applications (another nugget of marketing weasel beauty for rich online applications that I personally can't differentiate from DHTML, but that's another bitchy rant for another time), and 'social' tools like personalized taxonomies (non-heirarchical organizational schemes, like technorati tags), photo- or file-sharing sites like Flickr, blogging, and so on. One of the 'serious' sites of 'Web 2.0' is Plaxo, an online (or toolbar-based) contact manager:

Plaxo, Inc. keeps people connected by solving the common and frustrating problem of out-of-date contact information. Founded in July 2001, Plaxo provides a free service that securely updates and maintains the information in your address book. Plaxo is the universal digital assistant; available to you wherever and whenever you need it to keep you organized, on top of your life and in touch with those you care about. Since its release in beta in November 2002, Plaxo has become widely popular, adding an average of 20,000 new users every day due to the service’s ease-of-use and simplicity.

Right... Free (and anonymous) address book management, plus bulk emailing, plus e-card capabilities. Sounds like a spammer's wet dream to me. So this weekend, I got an email from a Plaxo user, an 'Update Request'. It wasn't from anyone I knew; they provided no information about themselves, and the only information that they had about me was my email address. No name, no address, no city, no state, no phone number; just an email address which I have not widely used. Yet here comes this "Please update your contact information" email. Spam? Yup. Someone's harvested my email address from an online forum and is trying to validate it for resale. I emailed 'abuse@plaxo.com' and asked them to cancel the user's account. I got an email back from Plaxo telling me that a.) they have taken steps to prevent future spam from this individual, but b.) I should email this person and ask them why they want my information, or c.) I should use their 'opt-out' tool which will prevent me from getting future requests from any Plaxo user. I replied to Plaxo that as I did not know the individual sending me this spam, I did not want to reply to them as this would confirm my email address. I also asked them how their 'opt-out' tool worked - did it simply 'bounce' an email, or did it actually send an email to the Plaxo user letting them know that 'someuser@some random domain.com' didn't want Plaxo Update Requests? Coz' if it's the second approach, that's just as bad as clicking on the bogus 'opt-out' links most spammers use. Plaxo's response this time?

Hello <real name>, Thank you for taking time to reply. I have initiated the necessary steps to Opt-out you from "<spammer>'s" mailing list. Henceforth, you will not receive any Plaxo service related mails from him. I hope this helps, please let me know if you have any further questions or concerns! Best regards, Mac privacy@plaxo.com

sigh Thanks, 'Mac'. No, I won't be getting any more spam from him, but I sure will from whoever he sells that email address to. Hey, Plaxo - how about hopping on the clue train, okay? If someone complains about spam from your users, cancel their friggin' accounts! Don't validate the email addresses for them! So there you have it, folks: Web 2.0 at its finest. Just like Web 1.0, only with a prettier user interface. Enjoy!