Back to hating Plaxo
I tried Plaxo early on. It rubbed me the wrong way . Then, as I occasionally have updated my contacts with info sent by Plaxo, I’ve come to tolerate it.
Today I hate it again. I got an update notice from someone and noticed that my own info was out of date. So I took the seemingly innocuous step of updating my phone number.
Lo and behold, Plaxo apparently took that as a command to send mail to everyone in my address book (actually, I don’t know whose address book) that I have new info that they simply must attend to. I am, I seem, an inadvertent Plaxo spammer and unintentional narcissist.
If Plaxo alerted you, I apologize. [Tags: plaxo]
[LATER that day:] Stacy Martin, Plaxo’s Privacy Officer, responds in the comments below, explaining what happened. It’s not as bad as I thought, but it’s somewhat worse than I’d like. (Thanks for the explanation, Stacy.)
Categories: Uncategorized dw
David – Perhaps you can contact me. I’m the Privacy Officer here at Plaxo and understandably I’d like to figure out what may have occurred here.
Plaxo members have the ability to send update request message to people in their address book, similar to the message you mentioned you received and responded to. But simply responding to this message would not cause you to become a member, nor result in you sending a mail to everyone in your address book. I’d like to see if we can figure out what may have happened.
Thanks,
Stacy Martin
Plaxo Privacy Officer
privacy @t plaxo.com
Stacy,
Thanks for noticing and responding.
I am a Plaxo member. I signed up years ago. I clicked on the link in an email prompting my to update my data. When I was done, I clicked what I thought was a simple “ok, accept my changes” button not knowing that it would trigger an action on Plaxo’s part.
Maybe I pressed the wrong button. All I know is that I started to hear from people who apparently had mail sent to them.
Ah… I think I understand.
A lot of people mistake Plaxo for simply being about sending and replying to update request emails. That is certainly one way that people use Plaxo, but Plaxo is really about keeping people connected and updated automatically.
As a Plaxo member, you are able to connect to other Plaxo members (based on their privacy settings) and other Plaxo members are able to connect to you, based upon your Privacy settings.
When you are connected to another member, you are able to be updated each time that connect-to member updates their own information. Their entry in your address book is automatically updated, and you receive a Plaxo Alert notifying you of the action.
When others are connected to you, they are updated automatically each time you update your own Plaxo information. They too receive a Plaxo Alert notifying them that your entry in their own address book has been updated.
So basically, when you recently updated your Plaxo cards, this did NOT result in everyone in your address book being sent a message. But it did result in those other Plaxo members connected to you to be automatically updated with your updated contact information. They received an alert, and it sounds like they used the occasion to touch bases with you. This is quite common, and been the basis for restarting relationships between contacts who have lost touch with each other.
I’m sorry this benefit of Plaxo was not understood and this is how Plaxo works, but I hope this helps. If there is anything else I can do, please let me know.
Thanks,
Stacy Martin
Plaxo Privacy Officer
privacy @t plaxo.com
I got one of those emails, but noticed that the address hadn’t actually changed, so figured you’d just relocated your offices into another room at Westbourne Terrace – from the north basement to the south den, perhaps. Hence the urgent need to redirect all incoming mail and alert your expectant audience of the need to reorient their Weinberger shrines accordingly.