Correction for import / invite of contacts

It has come to our attention that a few people, while going through the sign up process, imported their contacts and unintentionally invited their contacts to join goowy.  We added the invite functionality to let your contacts know about goowy because it is something our users were asking for. 

We thought we did a good job of making it clear (the text was large and red to let people know) that if you clicked "import" and had the invite box checked that it would invite your contacts and you were doing so willingly.  This was not at all intended as a malicious way to spam a user's contacts.

Since a few people have made this mistake we are removing the check from the check box.  If you want to help goowy grow and invite your contacts please check it manually. 

We are sincerely very sorry for any problems this may have caused and want you to know that this was not our intent.  We hope that anyone affected by this understand and continues to support goowy. 

Thank you for your understanding and support.

Comments

[Adriana]

No, it wasn't clear at all! And why was it there at the signing up process in the first place?It makes no sense and it certainly doesn't seem to me that it was only 'a few people' that got caught out by this.

Also, it is a very bad practice indeed to check any options on behalf of the user as a default...

As I said in the comments on my blog http://www.mediainfluencer.net/media_influencer/2006/01/goowy_spam_faux.html, it's too late for me and the damage to my credibility for spamming my friends and business contacts is too much to pass over.

[Cliff S.]

Please.

Take a look at the date - is it the 90's? Because that's the last time when a company could express any sort of ignorance about the UNIVERSAL revilement of "opt-out" spamming.

You're an EMAIL company, for God's sake! How can you even pretend to think that an automatic spam mail job should be initiated BY DEFAULT?! Have you been asleep for the last decade or what?

Free clue: EVERYONE HATES SPAM! Admins, users, friends, clients, relatives, pets - NONE of them want unsolicited email ads! The only people who disagree are, unsurprisingly, spammers who insist that everyone *loves* mailboxes stuffed with unwanted crap, really, wanna buy a 100% squeaky-clean "opted-in" (ha!) address list?

Seriously, who are you guys? Aegis? Real? Wallace? Picklejar? The ghost of Canter & Siegel past? Because I can't believe you're really a legitimate software company, given your *deliberate* obtuseness regarding best practice policies for email solicitations.

And if you are, somehow, that clueless...well, it doesn't lend much confidence in your products, does it?

[Cato]

Alex have you got permission from Mattahan to use his Gant icons in your interface?

See his Deviant page here:

http://mattahan.deviantart.com/

If not, you will have an even bigger problem at your hands!!

[Ben Metcalfe]

"This was not at all intended as a malicious way to spam a user's contacts."

Hmmmm maybe.

But the arguement can be reinforced by asking where the integrity is in inviting users to reccomend a service to their friends when they haven't even finished signing up for it themselves?

Bare in mind you can't use Goowy unless you already have an account, so why would you expect people to be reccomending it to their friends before they've even looked at it themselves?

I'll be bold and say I think you've simply been caught with your pants down. Plain and simple.

Being prepared to admit it would reflect far more positivly on your company than to fudge the issue. Most people who've been around for a while will know exactly what's going on here.

You're not fooling anyone.

[Loyal User]

I think you guys all need to give the Goowy Team a break. They've been doing an excellent job on accomadating their users needs. They also followed-up on this issue very quickly.

It's not truly spam, if you overlook large text in red stating that you'll be inviting your friends to take a look at this new internet program. It may not have been evident to everyone who was signing up to uncheck the box, but it was evident to the majority.

[Alex]

First and foremost we apologize for any problems this may have created. This was not our intent and we are truly very sorry. Anyone who has been with us over the last year knows that we listen to our users and put them first.

I also want to try to explain what happened. We added the optional import contacts / invite functionality because our members were asking for an easier way to import contacts and invite their friends. We originally implemented this in the goowy client under contacts.

After a positive response to it we decided to also add it to the signup process (last week). The thinking was that if we added it as OPTIONAL step and made it very clear that you would also invite your friends if you chose to, it would provide a better experience for you once you logged in.

We implemented the same code for the signup as we had for the in client import / invite. This was a mistake, but we thought we were being very clear that it is 1. Optional and 2. In big font and red letters saying that you would be inviting your friends to take a look at goowy.

As soon as we found out that some users had a problem with this because they chose to import their contacts and did not read that they would also invite their friends, we changed it immediately. That along with our apologies is the best that we can do.

We hope that people will understand and appreciate your support.

- Alex Bard (ceo)

p.s. We have a relationship with Paul Davey (creator of the Gant icons). If you read our about section on the site, in the client and on the desktop you will see credit given to him for the icons.

[Loyality]

All the fighting on an optional check box and nice looking graphics!! Pity!

Might be from some other Co. or jealous.

I am happy and cool with Goowy looking for more updated service.

Who would ever have replied to every mail of his customer other than Goowy?

[hades32]

Sorry, but if people can't read they deserve it, to spam their contacts!

[Cato]

Alex wrote:

"p.s. We have a relationship with Paul Davey (creator of the Gant icons). If you read our about section on the site, in the client and on the desktop you will see credit given to him for the icons."

My comment were not intended to unjustly criticize goowy or Alex at all.

In fact I am thinking about trying it out. Partly because the open and honest way Alex is dealing with all the trouble that has been coming his way since a few days.

I am impressed.

[Kristopher]

Too late buckos.

The blogosphere has gotten ahold of this.

Spamming by default is evil.

Hopefully, goowy will NOT recover from this idiocy.

[Kim]

Oh I think you've got it wrong Kristopher. Goowy has nothing to recover from. I just signed up and this application ROCKS!

[V. Castro]

"the blogosphere has gotten ahold of this" and "hopefully goowy will not recover"?

What the heck is that? The Hand of God, version Web 2.0?

Even if ALL of the so called blogosphere turned into some sort of self-appointed Judge and Jury entity, it would still be hardly a few percents of the total of web users (including a vast majority of 20something without boyfriends, blogging about their cat).

No matter how large the ego of some bloggers.

Sheesh, sometimes I wonder if the sheer arrogance of these people can be matched by the self-delusion of their own importance... Maybe they should try and get out of their blogobubble a bit more.

Goowy is a great product. People like great products. Moreover Goowy is free, and people love free great products.

The 'blogosphere' may bark, Goowy will move on.

[Nathan]

I realy think everyone is over reacting. This was the smallest, most unimportant detail EVER. If what he's saying is true (about a week) than obviously only a few people were affected (it's not like there are hundreds signing up everyday).

I mean even if your friends did get ONE extra junk email (They're not being put on a mailing list right?) it's not the end of the world. Plus, it realy is a good service and I think an even smaller number of people who were effected by this don't like the service.

Just move on, your problem has been fixed for the future, and if your friends can't understand what happed to you all after you tell them the situation, they realy aren't very good friends.

[Chris]

Hey some people have nothing better to do with their lameass unblogworthy lives than IGNORE painfully obvious instructions in BIG RED text, and then complain when their 101 fellow-whiner-pseudo-blogger-friends
complain about "gasp!" an extra uninvited email in their inbox. My Gawd!! the Outrage!!! For the love of whatever whiney-assed-panzy-gods you feebly worship, get a life!!! Mistakes happen, life goes on, at least for those of us with actual lives it does.