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Headaches in Fine Print
Sometimes you have only yourself to blame when your inbox fills with spam.
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Send gripes, questions, and tips for the spam wars to Tom Spring. Go to the Spam Watch page for more articles.
Tip of the Month
Sometimes using the opt-out function in commercial e-mail isn't enough to stop legitimate companies from sending you unwanted e-mail. Don't waste time trying to figure out why the e-mail keeps coming--use your e-mail client's blacklist feature to keep it from getting in your inbox. For example, in Microsoft Outlook Express 6 you'd open the Message pull-down menu and select the Block Sender option. To access blacklist options in Outlook 2003, select Actions, Junk E-mail Options, then Block Senders.
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Congratulations! You've just agreed to receive junk e-mail for the rest of your life. In less than 10 seconds, with one click, millions of us agree to cooperate with the worst of the online advertising industry without thinking twice.
The nasty fine print is buried deep in those long-winded, dense user agreements we mindlessly glance over with glazed eyes when we sign up for free software, e-mail newsletters, access to Web sites, and other offers. By skipping over privacy policies, end-user license agreements, and terms-of-service contracts, we often give advertisers the green light to create digital dossiers on us. Then they trade and sell the information, and of course aggressively market products to us through our inboxes as well as browser pop-ups and even plain old off-line junk mail.
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It's too bad most of us don't take the time to read these dense contracts. I'll admit that even I don't. If we did at least scan them, we'd be shocked--and perhaps wouldn't be so keen to enter an online contest for a free MP3 player or to fork over an e-mail address to send an online greeting card. The fewer potential marketers that get our e-mail addresses, the lower the volume of spam that hits our inboxes--along with the spyware and adware that comes in the same digital envelopes.
But then again, if we did read all those contracts, we'd lose hours reading some of the most boring text the written word offers.
In the end, we only have ourselves to blame for giving uninformed consent to marketers when we breeze over the fine print. But a review of some user agreements and privacy policies suggests that things are getting out of hand.
Shockers in Fine Print
At the bottom of the home page for ImBum, which offers software and services for instant messaging programs, is a link to a 2100-word privacy policy. The site is run by OptInRealBig.com, which is owned by self-proclaimed spam king Scott Richter. Here's an eye-opening excerpt:
<blockquote>OPTIN may use Individual Information to provide promotional offers to individuals by means of email advertising, telephone marketing, direct mail marketing, online banner advertising, and package stuffers, among other possible uses.</blockquote>
Later, the privacy policy states: "OPTIN MAY SELL OR TRANSFER INDIVIDUAL INFORMATION TO THIRD PARTIES FOR ANY PURPOSE IN OPTIN'S SOLE DISCRETION."
Another privacy policy, from GroupLotto, hits new lows in sneakware. To access the site, you must register by accepting its terms of use, which are buried in a 1170-word privacy policy that allows GroupLotto to essentially stalk you while you use its Web site. If you want to read the privacy policy you're agreeing to, you must click yet another link.
GroupLotto's privacy policy informs readers that it will save responses "to questions and surveys, community listings, ratings, searches and comparison searches, bidding, purchasing, chat, games, or bulletin boards." It also retains the right to use and share this information with sites you co-register with, so all its marketing partners can display commercial pitches tailored to you. "By clicking on any Advertiser's banner you agree to be co-registered at that advertiser's website--at no cost to you," the agreement states.
Wow--there's no cost to me. Should I thank them? Wait, it gets better.
According to GroupLotto, by agreeing to its terms, GroupLotto and sites you "co-register" with can contact you via telemarketing even if your phone number is listed on the Federal Trade Commission's Do-Not-Call List.
End-User Outrage
These aren't offers, they're coercion. People don't typically have the time or the legal background to navigate and understand the often-confusing legal documents that are end-user license agreements. The examples I cite in this column may be from sites you don't regularly visit. But honestly, did you read the privacy policy the last time you installed a benign program, like America Online's Instant Messenger software?
Blogger Ben Stanfield may be the exception to the rule. He read the AIM software terms of service and wrote about it. He noted that AOL's terms of service for AIM say you have no right to privacy when using the IM client.
Stanfield points to a section that reads as follows:
<blockquote>Although you or the owner of the Content retain ownership of all right, title and interest in Content that you post to any AIM Product, AOL owns all right, title and
