frank.vaculin@spoke.com

http://www.linkedin.com/ppl/webprofile?action=vmi&id=2127354&pvs=pp&authToken=9hXj&authType=name&trk=ppro_viewmore&lnk=vw_pprofile

1163 Nimitz Ln
Foster City, CA 94404-3623

His wife's name is Ellen

Someone add a phone number?

Here's his Facebook profile, email him through there:
http://www.facebook.com/frank.vaculin?hiq=frank%2Cvaculin&__a=1#/frank.vaculin?hiq=frank%2Cvaculin&__a=1

Lo and behold - a couple of days later my CPU is crawling at 100% usage and when we investigate, find that it is running in the backgroung and taking up nearly 90% of the CPU capability. I have now uninstalled everything that I found related to Spoke.

I would love to have a chat with the company CEO and find out what information they obtained - without my authorization - from my computer!

Does the toolbar infect Firefox as well or only M$IE?

Oh, and what the hell is Spoke? I'll definitely never use this service I never knew existed.

(The VP of Spoke claims his company's behavior is comparable to Skype's Outlook contact-gathering. The key difference is that Spoke gathers that information for its own uses, while Skype does it to simplify things for the user.)

So you don't have control over your own information at all. All you have to do is know one dumbass who doesn't read the agreement before installing the software.

(Which I apparently do.)

The VP of Sales for Spoke has posted a very detailed reply on the blogger's site who first "broke" the story. It's a bit snippy, but the bottom line is that Spoke does not sell, publish or otherwise disclose any private contact data like direct phone numbers, home phone numbers and email addresses.

Spoke's privacy policy emphasizes this, "Direct contact information (including email, address, and telephone number) may only be shared through the Spoke system by the action and with the permission of an individual who already possesses such information." (just like in real life)

In the interest of disclosure, I worked with Spoke until October of 2005. Spoke was not a perfect company, but in their data disclosure and privacy policies they always strived to be open and provide users with full control.