Sorry! SocialMinder is a Scam and I Fell for It.

I just spammed everyone to whom I've sent email - and that's a lot of people. That's because SocialMinder (nope, I won't link to them) is a spamming scam that I and a lot of other web savvy people fell for it.

I'm fuming, and I don't suffer silently. SocialMinder violated my trust and my contacts' privacy. I profusely apologize if I have spammed you through them.

Because my friends are a pretty well-connected group, I often get invites to Betas of new software and sites. So I didn't check out SocialMinder's privacy policy, and went ahead and signed up. It was a big mistake, and a dumb one. I should know better.

If I spammed you, I am sorry. I changed my gMail and LinkedIn passwords, and suggest you do the same if you've gotten email from SocialMinder.

Related: SocialMinder = Fail

so, did they just automatically forward an invite to all of your contacts?

the first thing that was fishy to me was that the email said it was a "closed alpha", which usually means i would need some sort of invite code. when they didn't make the invite code a required field, i got suspicious and checked the privacy policy -- which wasn't reassuring, since it said that they keep your email and LinkedIn passwords on file.

This service works fine. Obviously you didn't read the directions. You can't send invites to your friends without clicking on the boxes next to them and then clicking "continue".

Way to rush judgment without merit.

BL, I so apologise for the same thing to you! I was in a terrible rush early today and I thought I was doing a favour to a friend whose email was used to forward this to me when I sign up to 'test' the app. I did notice the text about how I will need to invite friends to get full upgrade/service but it never occured to me in my there won't be some final confirmation before I actually send something. I probably would have bailed out by then anyway!

My bad, it's stupid and I ought to know better - but it's 2008. I also get a lot of apps to test so had no reason to suspect this was any different - especially coming from a friend I know is in that line of business!

I dread to think of all the people I spammed in my contacts. Sigh. Sorry again.

B.L., it's okay. We're all human. Who wouldn't want to let their friends know of an easier way to keep up with each other!

BL, knowing how you feel about such things I was surprised when an invite to SocialMinder from you showed up in my inbox. But, hey, I've done the same damn thing with one of the other of the many social media spam/scam sites. So, cut yourself some slack. As Michelle says, "We're all human."

SocialMinder responded exactly appropriately to the reaction in this blog and others, I think:

http://www.socialminder.com/we-made-a-mistake-and-we-have-changed-our-approach/

The blog title says it all, but the details are interesting.

full disclosure: I own the offshore development company that coded most of the SocialMinder application.

So, how are we going to prevent our privete email from this kind of spammer? Is there any script available used to protect our mail?