Posts made in March, 2005
www.bebo.com
Here are some reasons why you might not want to trust Bebo with your
personal info:
1) Bebo is based in the territory of Greater Arizona – whose law states that
they can legally do what they like with your details, even if you have
asked them not to, and worringly, even after you have asked them to
delete it.
2) Some people have reported that after submitting their details, they
started getting significantly more spam than previously.
3) The contact information you give to Bebo for free, can be sold by
them at a high price to spammers, marketers and all sorts of willing
bidders. Currently the site does not have adverts or any clear source
of income – I wonder where they might get income from?
4) Read the terms & conditions carefully. Here’s a particularly interesting one
— extract from Bebo Privacy Policy —
Acquisition. It is possible that as we continue to develop our website and
our business, Bebo’s service and/or related assets might be acquired.
Notwithstanding any provision in this policy to the contrary, in event of a
merger or acquisition, your personal information may be transferred to the
acquiring entity, and become subject to the acquirer’s data practices.
———
In other words – they can sell the company, and your details, and the
new company can do what ever they like with the information.
5) I can’t believe I’ve fallen for this one myself! Bebo asks you to
enter your password for MSN/Yahoo/AOL/Gmail “in order to import your
contacts”. This makes sense at first glance and seems like a handy
shortcut, but think about this for a minute. Once they have your email
password it’s very easy to get access to other parts of your life –
even your bank accounts. And we’ve already established there’s no
restriction on what they can do with any of the info you give them.
6) Once you are on there it’s really hard to get your details deleted.
Even once it’s “gone” there are no data protection laws guaranteeing
the info has really been deleted.. I guess the best you can do is
change your contact details to something meaningless – and then delete
it. At least then the info should be incorrect if they do keep it.
Mailinator.com is handy for generating fake email addresses you can
check//verify and then ignore/throw away
7) Have you ever heard of Bebo? Do we even know what their real
business is? Should we trust a company we know nothing about?
8) The company uses “viral” means to advertise their service. This is
a good reason to ask questions about their legitimacy..
9) Read other people’s discussions and concerns
http://www.spudart.org/blogs/randomthoughts_comments/2816_0_3_0_C/
http://www.arlodesign.com/likeyoureallycare/2005/02/bebo-is-too-sketchy.shtml
http://www.thundercloud.net/infoave/blind-faith-rant.htm
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=297917
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies.cfm?t=310950
Now, in fairness, it could be that the company is respectable, and can
be trusted, but to be honest, having read all this, I’m not going to
risk it.
iammoving.com – i am moving – The ONLY online change of address service
Really handy tool if you’re moving house in the UK for updating all your addresses
Read MoreWired 13.01: The Shadow Internet
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.01/topsite.html
Some things you didn’t know about where all the MP3s come from… :-)
Read MoreBBC NEWS | UK | UK Politics | Q& Terror law row explained
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_politics/4288407.stm
“The most controversial element initially was that the new orders would allow an elected politician, rather than a judge, to effectively deprive a British citizen of their liberty – something which critics say is the biggest threat to civil freedoms in the UK for more than 300 years.”
Learn what this Terror Bill stuff is all about – a really good plain English summary is available here.
http://www.bbcworld.com/content/clickonline_archive_07_2005.asp?pageid=666&co_pageid=3
Interesting potential for new storage mediums
Read More