"Free stuff" sites violate own Privacy Policy

[Doctor Q]

The operator of the sites that promise free iPods and other items are being sued in New York for selling customer e-mail addresses to spammers after claiming they would not.

Macworld story

Note that posting "referrer" links to these sites and other pyramid marketing schemes is against MacRumors forum rules, but discusion of the way these sites do business is permitted.

Their Privacy Policy says

For your protection, our third party business partners are prohibited from accessing any of your personal information until you consent to such transfer.

It sounds like this is the part they did not observe. Of course, the idea behind these sites is that you sell yourself (and a certain number of friends) as marketing targets for the businesses they represent, in exchange for merchandise, so perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that participants ended up on spammer lists.

 

[dornoforpyros]

what? a thinly vailed pyramid scheme has done something dis-honest? Boy what's the world come to when you can't trust a free lunch

 

[andiwm2003]

i'm not sure what to think about that. one the one hand i think spammer should go to prison or worse forever. on the other hand they are not really spammers. you have to send them your e-mail first and be dumb enough that they don't sell it. so somehow you deserve to be spammed.......

 

[yankeefan24]

i always think that giving out your e-mail to a non big corporation or somewhere you trust (like here) is a bad idea.

other people may have different opinions, but that's just how i feel.

 

[liketom]

i person at my work got spammed one of them Txt Messages on his mobile , he chased it up 3 companys and found out they sold his mobile number without his say so

so far he has got a 60 gb 5g black ipod - and he is still trying to get more out of them before he goes to the trading standards