I received a surprise email from Plaxo today, updating me on the status of my account. I’d forgotten I’d once joined, in the spirit of adventure.

So, I went to the Plaxo site where they’ve prominently posted reassuring information about their privacy policy. I found where I can opt out of receiving update requests, although it results in the following almost-funny error message:

The e-mail address you are trying to opt-out from ([email protected]) has already been claimed by another user (possibly you). You will not be able to opt-out at this time.

(A search of their knowledge base turns up this page with information about quitting.)

Plaxo is taking the bad publicity about privacy concerns seriously. There’s a whole bunch of information about it on their site, most of it written in a straightforward and reassuring way. And, I have no reason to think that Plaxo is any less trustworthy than the other folks I give sensitive information to. Nevertheless, the table of how they compare on privacy to MSN, AOL, Yahoo, Amazon and eBay gives me pause. Only one company — Plaxo — gets a checkmark for “Provides opt-out mechanism for non-members.” Try to get your brain around that concept!

Categories: Uncategorized dw