Resending Info about Grouply.com

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Grouply.com: cool free service or evil data miner? | Welcome to NCS-Tech!Below

is some information about Grouply. I refused to join. If anyone on this group

does join, please do not have my email in your address book. Also, please do

not put Natural Remedies on your info at Grouply. I do know of one person, in

the group, that has joined. Also, for the past couple of weeks, I have been

getting invites to join Grouply, from people, I do not know. Thank You.

Blessings, Joy

IDENTIFY THEFT AT GROUPLY.COM

There is a message going out to different advertising

and suggesting that you join a new group called GROUPLY. This group

claims to help manage all your and you will get a

summary, at the end of the day, telling you what is going on in all

your groups.

IF YOU JOIN THIS GROUP, they use your ID and password to

post " mass mailings " (can be junk, can be porn) and send them to

anyone, and since it's YOUR ID they are using, others will think it is

coming from you.

For instance, you could get an email CLAIMING that it came from

" amystica3 " group and it really is not from this group. I could

get an email, with this mass mailing, claiming it came from me, and it

would NOT have been from me.

Again, IF YOU HAVE JOINED THIS GROUP called " GROUPLY " IMMEDIATELY

leave Grouply. Then go into your account at:

mygroups and change your password. Some

groups have posted that this will help. Unsubbing from that group

won't make a difference (but I think you will want to then possibly

rejoin) but you DO NEED TO CHANGE YOUR PASSWORD.

By joining this group you have also exposed all your groups, group

members and group leaders to hacking of their emails and group

information.

Because of this problem, some groups are removing all members with

a email grouply.com. This is the only way to protect all the members.

This is how Identity theft gets going. They now have your real

email, your emails, any emails listed in your group and

can mail as you in and out of the .

I hope you understand what is happening and will take precautions

to protect your ID.

I have also heard that grouply.com sells your information once

they have it.

Bizzy Searchin Mod

a.. 8 months ago

Source(s):

This was taken from the Bizzy-Searchin-Freebies site.

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Grouply.com: cool free service or evil data miner?

11 Feb 2008 @ 08:10 am · 46 Comments ·

Good morning all,

After reading a cautionary email message in bit.listerv.edtech about a free new

service called Grouply, I became intrigued and decided to check it out…

It certainly LOOKS like a legit (and potentially very helpful) web 2.0

application! They’re TRUSTe certified, they got a positive review on

TechCrunch, and they even have a FAQ that directly addresses some of the

concerns that have been raised on the Internet about them. More importantly, the

concept is very powerful; it’s basically a social networking mashup of your

and Google Groups, offering to turn your mishmosh of multiple groups into

a seamless, single-site experience. But wait, there’s more…

Grouply allows you to get all of your group updates in a single email;

consolidates all your group information on a single website; dramatically

reduces the size (measured in line counts) of ‘digest’ emails, making them

easier and faster to read; allows for cross-group calendaring; tagged searches;

dynamic user profiles; and ‘what’s popular’ and ‘who’s active’

functions to keep tabs on hot topics and prolific members of your network. Take

the tour yourself. For people who subscribe to and manage a lot of and

Google groups, Grouply could be a godsend.

So what’s the problem?

In order for the service to work, you have to give them your ID and

password. All of a sudden, visions of address-book spammers like Quechup come

racing to mind, but we’re not talking here about a service using your address

book to grow their business. No, it’s a potentially a LOT worse than that. To

be honest, I’m not sure the founders of Grouply have thought this through very

well.

Consider for a moment what information is controlled by your credentials

… like all your Flickr photos; your Finance account information; your

Security Key; all your profiles and identities; your OpenID key;

your home address and telephone number; your Wallet information, even your

Auctions account.

Yep. Once you’ve given out your password, they have access to all of that,

regardless if they have NO INTENTIONS WHATSOEVER of using it. Grouply tries to

allay fears about potential misuse of your credentials in this part of their FAQ

but to anyone with a modicum of concern about their data privacy, this is a HUGE

red flag. Doesn’t matter what they say. (Can you say ‘rouge employee?’)

Fact is, you’ve given out your password. What happens next?

If all goes well, you’ll enjoy the new service and its cool features. You’ll

save time, build your network, and access information more easily. You’ll

start leveraging Groups in ways you hadn’t before. It’s all good!

If all DOESN’T go well - and your identity is somehow compromised,

despite the ample protections they claim to have in place - what then?

There’s more, though. As I understand it, joining Grouply effectively

overrides the privacy and other settings you’ve put in place on Groups

you’re managing. Content becomes available, email addresses of subscribers

become visible, everything becomes part of the network. For people using

Groups as a secure communication area for business or their organization, this

could be a problem. I don’t belong to any groups that I wouldn’t write about

here, but I have created MANY private groups for clients, colleagues and school

associates for projects. I wouldn’t want these private groups’ content

brought into the open; that’s why we made ‘em private!

Seriously. I don’t design web applications and I’m not a venture capitalist.

I’m certainly no data security expert. Heck, I’m a classroom teacher. I

spend my day surrounded by adorable schoolkids in my computer lab. But I’m

also a longtime user and someone who knows their way around the web.

There’s no way in a million years I’d ever give my credentials to a

website like Grouply. Just my choice. Your mileage may vary!

Here’s my question for the founders, who will probably find this blog and

hopefully comment.

I’ve seen various web 2.0 services request for “authorization†to use my

stuff, like my Flickr photos. This is handled completely differently; I

sign into my Account page and securely give applications permission to

access my DATA but not my ACCOUNT DETAILS. Big difference. Is there a reason you

could not have used a similar approach? *THAT* would make this service a

slam-dunk.

To the curious, though, there is a way to try this service. Just create a second

identity, and use it only for messaging. Sign up for all your groups

again using that identity. It would be kinda inconvenient, but, you could get a

sense for the real value of the service without putting anything at risk. What

do you think?

I’ll close with this thought. Conceptually, this is an EXTREMELY cool idea. I

love the social networking implications and I love saving time. But what about

the risks? If you don’t have a lot of personal information tied into your

account,by all means, go for it! If you do … I recommend you think

twice.

Hope this helps,

-kj-

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