Conclusion, at best iDrive is still a bunch of thieving spammers, and at worst they're buying lists from people who shouldn't be selling them; potentially they're buying from hackers.

There's an app for that!

LOL.

Please see item #4 on Avi's previous email. This time read it slowly.

Also, "send an apology to your contacts" WTF? Thanks but no thanks. His contact probably don't want anything else from you at all, ever. Especially a "We're so sorry, here's 5% off! and a sales pitch!"

Unless I'm seriously missing something.

Avi,

First, I apologize for the event. I really do. We also posted a
comment on your blog earlier today. Obviously the referral system is
not working as intended, and we have put a stop to this.

We have only a few lines of agreement ( when one installs the IDrive
Lite app ) which includes the line related to sending referral emails
to contacts. While if we were to implement this now, we would do this
differently and entirely get rid of the referral part, we did our best
to inform. Also, this referral was run only for a few users, and has
been stopped.

If you would like us to send an apology to your contacts, we can do so.

Regards,

Raghu Kulkarni

Yes, we will also have an update on our company blog shortly indicating this.

Hi Raghu,

Yesterday I woke up to find that iDrive had spammed all of my personal and company contacts that I'd synchronized using iDrive Lite.

I used iDrive on a word-of-mouth recommendation from a friend who had heard great things about it in Lifehacker. Not because I had been spammed by it. Actually, I would NEVER use a service that had spammed me and can't imagine anyone who would, save for people with erect1le dysfunction.

I want to point out 4 important things to you:

1) You will lose far more users than you will gain through this practice. I will personally make it a point to publicize my experience to prevent other people from suffering the same type of embarrassment and loss of reputation as I had to go through when my contacts all asked me why they were being bombarded with iDrive spam. I have posted it online, will contact Apple and will make sure that this behavior gets seen by potential customers. I just saw it picked up in the Consumerist as well.

2) No consumer in their right mind would ever agree to let you spam their friends. Anyone who agrees to a term like this in your EULA has simply overlooked it and it is evil to take advantage of that fact. Simply put, it's not a practice you should ever do, even with permission.

3) If enough people report iDrive as spam (and they will), even your legitimate emails will be blocked by all major ISPs.

4) This activity is actually illegal. You can't spam someone else without their permission. Getting my permission to spam my friend (accidental or not) is inconsequential. Without my friend's permission you cannot send him promotional emails.

I am especially upset because iDrive is otherwise an awesome product and as an entrepreneur myself, I respect good products. I would have paid for it happily had I not been so betrayed.

I hope you put a stop to this immediately and I would like you to address it on your company blog, if you really have stopped the practice, as "idrive support" posted in the comments in my blog. I think it's the only way to really make things right.

Thanks,
Avi Muchnick
CEO / Aviary.com

So if the post *is* from iDrive, that makes them either liars or fools.

The real problem is that PC users cannot understand that the Mac OS was and is designed for use with EXTENSIVE keyboard shortcuts. These are significantly faster than doing the same operations via right clicking. Windows users are not used to keyboard shortcuts because Windows does everything in a long and convoluted way. It's cool with me if you like taking extra steps to do whatever you need to do, but I prefer keeping my work flowing.

@ShiningSquirrel: If that were true, that loophole that would've already been exploited to bypass anti-spam laws.

iDrive, or any company for example, would need only a "customer" with a large contact list to sign up and agree to let that list be used for spamming.

@Jim Topoleski: Offensive to whom? You? Just because YOU find it offensive doesn't mean someone else will. Offensive is subjective.

It's not like Trent was telling people to shoot themselves in the face. And Closure was not/is not offensive.

@thebigbluecheez:

Yeah, don't go to England.

you sir are a spam patriot!

@ShiningSquirrel: This sounds a lot like the whole Quechup fiasco. They blindsided a lot of tech-savvy people with their allegedly user-approved email spam.

Avi should have done two things:

1) Read at least the first page of reviews for any apps before installing. A couple of them mentioned the spamming.

2. Use his phone to sync up with Google Contacts automatically. I keep all my contacts in Google, and whenever I plug the phone in it syncs up anything I changed either from the computer or the phone. It's super nice.

If I decided one day to send an email to some company and CC my colleagues, there's no way in heck I would appreciate it if that company decided to spam my colleagues with third-party junk.

There is now a post on his blog claiming to be from iDrive.
They claim he agreed to the referral emails when he sighned up. If he did, then it's on his shoulders.

Ok while I get your point, and Downward Spiral was my very first NIN album and I LOVED it to death in 8th grade, saying its NOT offensive is a bit much.

That album is offensive as hell, though completely in the right way. Me and My Gun? Closer? yeah... those songs arn't offensive at all.

Considering the standard "click-through" EULAs is only barely even legally binding, no, I doubt doing something like this is legal even if the EULA mentions it.

The power in most EULAs is limited to things mentioned on the box/sales agreement, what exists in copyright law, and things that are obvious (like reverse engineering to crack the software).

They are often seen as contracts of adhesion when they get out of hand. Which basically renders them invalid apart from the above.

[en.wikipedia.org]

I knew there was a reason I didn't trust Apple's judgment...

Then again they did spend 10 years making a prettier, shinier exterior for their hardware while ignoring the utilitarian concept of having more than one mouse button. Guess I shouldn't be surprised.

IDrive Support

@dohtem:

It was a funny angle!

Now if the vendor filtered Avi's contacts and discovered that some of those contacts were already customers of the vendor then they could send an e-mail to them saying "Hey, we just noticed that Avi is now a customer!" that would be one thing. But blindly spamming contacts is another thing altogether.

[www.google.com]

You missed the point. Avi may or may not have volunteered for spam, but his contacts certainly didn't. They are violating federal law here people. No doubt about it.

@dohtem: Fish and Chips, Cup O Tea Mary F-ing Poppins, London

* cyber cookies for anyone that gets the movie reference WITHOUT Googling.

@SkokieGuy: I wish there were some "obvious crap" law that required things like that to be FRONT AND CENTER in HUGE TEXT so people don't get screwed for not reading 20 pages of EULA.

Is Avi certain that permission wasn't granted somewhere deep in a EULA?

If this is as described, there are Federal anti-spam laws, Pro Softnet could be prosecuted for a felony.

Unless of course Avi would rather be the lead plaintiff in a class-action lawsuit?