
60 million stung in social networking rip-off - vaksel
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/60-million-stung-in-social-networking-ripoff-1740647.html
======
mattjaynes
It's kinda funny to follow what's going on with Tagged.

About 2 years ago I had just accepted an offer with Scribd, but already had an
interview set up with Tagged, so I decided to go to the interview just for the
experience. I had initially declined the Tagged interview after looking at
their site (asking myself "Would I ever use this?" and the answer was "Hell
no"), but Greg Tseng called me and convinced me to change my mind. Man, that
guy can talk - he's very smart and very persuasive. He told me about how they
were already very profitable and about his team's expertise with "viral
marketing" <cough>. So I decided to go and see what it was like.

I arrived at the interview in a lovely loft office downtown SF and met with
the engineers who asked me to solve some low level complex computer science
brain teasers. Having spent all of my previous 8 years building web systems
for major universities and billion dollar companies and no time practicing
computer science brain teasers, I failed pretty miserably ;)

Anyway, it obviously wasn't going to be a match, but it was an interesting
life experience nonetheless. Fortunately working at Scribd was great - super
great team and really interesting problems to solve.

------
ghshephard
Tagged is a bottom feeder, but they they aren't really the worst of the worst.
To some degree, I think having annoying, yet relatively harmless (They didn't
install a keylogger, execute XSS against bank accounts, or format hard drives)
companies like this in the Internet Ecosystem is a bit like vaccinating people
against the truly dangerous diseases.

Over time, people will become a _little_ more savvy about clicking on these
"Your friend just sent you X", be more alert to phishing, use slightly more
secure and heterogeneous mail clients/browsers.

And then, when a truly dangerous black hat shows up, they won't have free
reign over a completely unsuspecting populace.

~~~
ube
I respect your faith in the general populace but I doubt that they'll become
more savvy. Easy usage beats savvy computer practice on any day. Look at
Facebook usage and the astounding amount of personal information that people
reveal (especially the latest most tech savvy generation).

~~~
philwelch
In my experience it's much less than it used to be--people sharing their AIM
screen names, for instance, have almost universally stopped doing so, and
physical addresses have disappeared too. Most people even lie about their
relationship status.

------
tedunangst
Tagged sucks, but the article omits the key fact that it only sent out emails
to your contact list if you gave it access to your email account. It wasn't as
simple as "Any click resulted in the same thing, Cuomo said: Every person on a
user's contact list received an email".

Blaming only the company doesn't help people learn the appropriate lesson of
"don't share your password."

~~~
Nycto
While I agree with the idea that you should never share your password, you're
blaming the victim. Having read a few accounts of their exploits now, this
company is manipulating these people.

~~~
philwelch
Some victims deserve blame. It's the rare con job that plays on our virtues
and wisdom rather than our stupidity and baser desires.

~~~
bobbyi
So they deserve what they got for wanting to see pictures posted by their
friends?

~~~
philwelch
I don't think it rises to that level, but tedunangst and gojomo are both right
in that imprudent user behavior was a necessary condition of this happening.

------
mgrouchy
Finally. The shady practices of Tagged are disgusting, I hope something
actually comes out of this(a fine would be nice).

------
gojomo
Let's see: a social network using sleazy spamy user-acqusition techniques; a
grandstanding state attorney general, and users who casually share their
address books and mail logins with third party sites. Help! There's no one in
this story to root for!

~~~
jonshea
Maybe you don’t hate spam as much as I do, but I’ll root for the state
attorney general.

------
raganwald
Tagged Terms of Service:

"...Tagged reserves the right to modify or amend this Agreement at any time,
for any reason, or for no reason at all, at Tagged's sole discretion. The most
recent version of this Agreement will be posted on the Tagged website.
Although Tagged will provide notice of material changes to this Agreement on
the Tagged website, as a Member it is your sole responsibility to keep
yourself apprised of any such modifications or amendments. Should Member
object to any terms and conditions of the Agreement or any subsequent
modifications thereto or become dissatisfied with Tagged in any way, Member's
only recourse is to immediately: (1) discontinue use of Tagged; (2) terminate
Tagged registration; and (3) notify Tagged of termination."

So, here're the terms but we can change them at any time for no reason at all
and it's your responsibility to keep up.

~~~
arockwell
Don't most terms of service have a clause in them similar to that?

------
nettdata
I wonder how well their SQL scaled?

What? Too soon? ;)

------
MicahWedemeyer
I wish there were some way to simply make it illegal to send emails to
someone's contact list, no matter how many "yes, it's ok" check-boxes they
click.

I lay some of the blame at the big-boys' feet (Facebook and friends) for
getting users accustomed to this kind of behavior. Now people are so used to
giving out their email credentials that they never stop to think that it's
ALWAYS a bad idea.

------
erlanger
/me wonders what Terry Chay has to say about this...

