use Perl

• Did you talk to your friend? (Score:1)

  by phillup (4419) on 2004.05.06 13:23 (#30612) Homepage Journal

  Did you talk to your friend to see if she gave them your email address?
  
  The reason I ask is, it seems like what is happening to you is exactly what they say will happen in their privacy statement.

  FreeFlixTix uses personally identifiable user information for the purposes of the FreeFlixTix website and the FreeFlixTix referral and movie-admission-certificate-earning credit system. For example, we use email addresses of users, and of those persons provided on their referral lists, to send an invitation to the referred friend and encourage them to sign up on FreeFlixTix. When a user lists an email address on the referral page, that triggers an email to be sent from that registered user to the referral address, encouraging the referral to sign up on the FreeFlixTix website. If the referred person does not sign up within a few days, we also send a reminder from the registered user to the referral address. We also use email addresses to send useful information to all registered users regarding the FreeFlixTix website. We may sell or market the email addresses, postal addresses, and survey information of registered users only, to third parties. We will not, however, sell or market any personal information of any unregistered user to any third party.

  I'm not a fan of unsolicited email, but... their policy seems "somewhat reasonable." As long as they only get email addresses from your friends, and not a paid for list...
  
  I won't call it reasonable because I don't think they should send more than one email. After all... it could have been an *enemy* that put your name on the list.
  
  Perhaps a message to the culprits (FreeFlixTix) would be in order also... to point out how your name could be put on the list by someone that isn't a "friend".

  Reply to This

  • Re:Did you talk to your friend? (Score:2)

    by jdavidb (1361)

    I've asked, and I'm sure she gave it. On the surface the primary unreasonable thing they seem to be doing is sending so many emails, but really, when you think about it, this is a business that exists for solely the purpose of harvesting email addresses. They have a scheme to build an exponentially growing list of email addresses, which I'm sure is for sale to whoever wants it.

    --
    J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers
  • Re:Did you talk to your friend? (Score:2)

    by drhyde (1683)

    Who cares what they say? If they sent unsolicited bulk mail, they're spammers.
    • Re:Did you talk to your friend? (Score:2)

      by jdavidb (1361)

      I agree vehemently. It was very unsolicited, and very bulk. As I said, they seem to have a perfect scheme to collect an exponentially growing database of valid email addresses here, without ever having to get the permission of people as their addresses are added. I wouldn't be surprised if it's all just a front for a mailing list collection agency which then goes on to sell the lists.

      --
      J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers
      • Re:Did you talk to your friend? (Score:2)

        by pudge (1)

        Not that I like businesses that do this, but I blame your friend more than I blame them.