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Find-a-friend Databases on the Web
I got an email this week from a relative who asked:
Hey T
Know anything about "namesdatabase.com"? One of my Nigeria buddies [he's a part-time missionary - Terry] sent me a link to it, might be a sort of international website for contact info, but I am skeptical enough to ask you before I fill in any blanks or provide any personal info.
Incidentally, I trust the guy I got it from, but there are a lot of scams and he may not know of this if it is so. Nigeria is known for scams (banks, personal info etc.)
Thanks,
I've gotten invitations to several sites like this before — and I ignore them. I _think_ I've heard of namesdatabase.com but it could be just because it looks/sounds like others.
Personally, I wouldn't sign up for any of these...
First I went to the site. Then, to see what others thought about it, I Googled for
namesdatabase.com scam
and got this as one of the answers http://www.intelliot.com/blog/archives/2006/04/05/namesdatabase-scam/
Again, I wouldn't... Even if it is not a scam, I don't believe in providing that information on the web to anyone who's wanting to put together their own database. It's invariably a marketing system — and by "opting in" you've officially bought into the whatever advertising they want to send to you.
Note that, unlike the writer in that blog entry, I would not term advertising from them as "spam" — if you're getting something or a service from someone, you have joined in a relationship with them and you should expect to get advertising from them. Spam is when unknowns send unsolicited commercial email — where you don't have a relationship with them.
The official term in the CAN-SPAM Act is "a business relationship" — and by taking something (goods, information or service) from them, you've established that business relationship — it is business relationship from their point of view and your side of the quid pro quo is to get advertising emails.
Link to this page — just add this code to your web page!
<a href="http://www.terryscomputertips.com/computers/find-a-friend-databases-on-the-web.php">Find-a-friend Databases on the Web</a>
Copyright © 2006 Terry A. Stockdale. All rights reserved.
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