Ok, so maybe I am coming down a bit hard on Plaxo. It appears you have tightened up your privacy policy since I first looked at y’all a couple of years ago.

Having said that, it doesn’t change my overall opinion of Plaxo. Intentionally or not, it is spam to me. The viral marketing bit in your application, which is I suppose needed for the automatic updated address books, really turns me off. It has since the first one I recieved some time ago when y’all first launched. This family member is just the latest in a list of “friends”, family and coworkers who have bombarded me every couple of months with Plaxo messages.

While at first I was most hesitant because of the privacy issues you had off the bat, I am adamantly resistant now because of the viral invite/update messages. Oh, well I guess that is what email filters are for, just a shame I can no longer allow all messages coming from matches in my address book to come through unflagged.

Seriously, Plaxo offers a line of contact management products to help members manage, maintain, and update their address book, calendar, notes and task information. We currently have over 5M members who trust Plaxo to help securely update and manage their address book information.

One part of our service allows members to send an Update Request message to selected contacts within their own local address book in order to stay in touch with the contact. This message is similar to a “Here’s my new info. Can you update me?” message someone might send on their own when moving, changing jobs, etc… The advantage to using Plaxo is any response the member might receive is automatically updated into their address book through Plaxo.

There are many other advantages available to Plaxo members to help them better manage their information and keep it safe including secure anytime, anywhere Web access to member information, multi-system synchronization capabilities, Birthday Reminder service, Holiday card service, quick backup and restore capabilities of Address book and PIM information.

Our members can be assured that we follow very strict privacy practices summarized by our Plaxo Privacy Principles:

- Your Information is your own and you decide who will have access to it.
- You maintain ownership rights to Your Information, even if there is a business transition or policy change.
- You may add, delete, or modify Your Information at any time.
- Plaxo will not update or modify Your Information without your permission.
- Plaxo will not sell, exchange, or otherwise share Your Information with third parties, unless required by law or in accordance with your instructions.
- Plaxo does not send spam, maintain spam mailing lists, or support the activities of spammers.

Stacy Martin
Plaxo Privacy Officer
privacy @t plaxo.com

I have a canned answer to Plaxo devotees who send me requests… http://www.robertnasir.com/misc/plaxo.htm