Social networking is supposed to be a fun way to connect with friends and meet new people that share your interests … or is it? It’s also a not very veiled secret that many companies, even national brands, see these sites as a huge pool for their marketing interests. According to Andrew Cuomo, the attorney general of New York, one social networking site has gone too far. He is accusing Tagged.com of identity theft.
According to Cuomo, “This company stole the address books and identities of millions of people.†He is referring to the site’s practice of recruiting new members by using existing members’ email contacts lists. The site sends emails to these people stating that a photo of them has been “tagged†on the site, meaning a person has identified them as being in said photo.
The problem is, many of these emails are fake and the people are not actually mentioned on the site at all. However, they won’t find this out until they visit the site. Sure, this behavior is certainly annoying, especially to the people that find out they haven’t really been tagged after all, but does it really qualify as identity theft?
Cuomo believes that it is just as bad as breaking into someone’s home and stealing his or her address book, then using that information for solicitations. However, Greg Tseng of Tagged.com insists that is not the case since users can choose whether or not to let the site see their contacts. This point can be argued since it’s not uncommon for people to rush through registration and not realize they spammed their friends until it’s too late.
Whether this is actually a case of identity theft, or just a case of somewhat questionable ethics, it does bring about a good point. There are many, many people out there that share way too much personal information online, especially through social networking sites. They don’t have to just worry about potential employers or future romantic partners seeing it and questioning their character. They also have to worry about identity thieves who are just waiting for them to slip up and reveal that one crucial fact they need to get their foot in the door of their bank accounts.
When it comes to social networking sites, you can say “user beware.†Make sure to read the fine print before accepting terms of service agreements. You don’t want to give the site access to your personal information, and certainly not to the personal information of people in your contacts list. It is very bad online etiquette to offer up people’s email addresses without their permission, even if you get promises of a “free gift†or “extra referral points.â€
Treating each other how we want to be treated can certainly apply here. I want all of my friends, whether they are in person or online, not to mention my coworkers and acquaintances for that matter, to have spam-free inboxes and good coverage through an identity theft protection company.