I have heard, on the moderators' groups, a lot of things regarding Grouply.
Not much of it was good.
We obviously can't stop people from signing up with any service that they wish
to, but please, caveat emptor.
This is a rebroadcast from a web group moderator regarding Grouply. It is one
of many, and the one that discusses Grouply the most completely. It's a good
distillation of the negative buzz that I have been exposed to for the past
several months.
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Really, there are people who will give their passwords to some random site?
Really? You'd think everyone would know better than that, but I guess not.
Here's the warnings I've gotten from a couple of different Yahoo Groups
moderators. (They didn't all send the same thing, I just picked the best
written one.)
You may have recently become aware of a new site which advertises they can make
accessing your groups faster and easier. This is posted as a warning.
Over the past few days I've researched the Grouply service from both the pro
and con perspectives, poured through numerous posts on the various Yahoo Groups
technical and management lists, and examined comments from Grouply advisory
board members as well as the CEO and co-founder and all have helped me to the
conclusion I hold regarding the service. While Grouply is the only service
mentioned by name, as other services are developed that offer similar services
the policy explained below will be expanded to encompass the new companies.
When you join Grouply.com, several things will occur which you may not be aware
will happen:
First, when a member joins, it automatically changes their primary email
address for the groups, giving them a @grouply.com extension. This is being
done to those who are joining and is changed on the Yahoo ID so all mail
received from the lists will now be sent to the grouply.com address. The only
place this is mentioned is deep in one of the FAQs and not up front and in
plain view of the new subscriber.
Second, members who join the Grouply website have to give their [Yahoo] member
ID and password. This opens up a security issue for those members as now a
third party has complete access to their Yahoo account. This includes not just
the Yahoo Groups, but also personal mail and any other services accessed via
the Yahoo ID.
Third, once a member joins Grouply, it opens access to the files and posts of
each group to the Grouply website. Grouply staff can then access these files.
If they get hacked, then it opens the doors to the groups getting hacked as
well. Additionally, Grouply will pull the list's archives onto their servers,
generally a violation of Yahoo's TOS.
Fourth, it opens the risk of spam. Not only is there an enticement to send a
message to all the new grouply.com subscriber's groups announcing the Grouply
service, but any other advertising or announcements as well. This is spam and
few lists tolerate such solicitations. In other words, information from a group
can be made accessible to everyone, and massive amounts of spam with your email
address may be generated.
Now that we are aware of this issue, all members with an email address that
includes grouply.com will be removed from this list effective February 15th.
[Note: This does not pertain to EDI-L -- yet. ] Removing their access is the
only way to protect all members of this list. This is one way how identity
theft gets going. They now have your real email, your yahoo emails, any emails
listed in your yahoo group and can mail as you in and out of the yahoo groups.
If you have joined Grouply and are using them to read this list, you will need
to either leave Grouply, or cease having Grouply collect your mail for this
group. By joining Grouply you have exposed all your groups, group members,
moderators, and owners to unauthorized use of their emails and group
information.
I hope you understand what is happening and will take precautions to protect
your Yahoo ID.
============================================
Now my comments.
This warning is from the moderator of the list that I 'borrowed' this post
from. The list owner (Rich Druckenmiller) and I have not come up with a policy
regarding Grouply yet. However, effective immediately, any member who sends a
Grouply email will be put on 'moderated' status while we figure out what to do
ultimately.
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