You wouldn't be so snooty if they still owned the paper... But then, neither would Boy Otis.

His Dad used to own one of these.

Social networking is out of control. It's not that we want to be mean to old friends, but we shouldn't have to make these silicon valley punks wealthy or risk pissing off former associates who haven't been in touch for five years anyway.

I've been on AOL, at this e-mail address, since the early 90s. The last thing I need is for somebody to hijack all my addresses as a way of increasing their profits. I'd probably still be responding to e-mail from this next month, and from people I'd rather not hear from whose e-mail addresses are still hanging around there in my address book. It seems you have to sign up to trigger it to data-rape you, so I'm safe, but I truly resent being made to worry about this.

Another good reason to keep total control of your data and have it live only on local machines.

This is one of the reasons I keep recommending against internet backup services.

Dot Mac is great. If somebody steals your local machine, everything's gone. I forget the name of the author, but they gave her an award at LA Times Festival of Books, and she lost years and years work in a fire.

Thanks for posting this Amy and once again thanks for being so gracious about the mix-up. I've been busy answering hundreds of emails from people in my contacts who were spammed by Goodreads, and certainly I'll have hundreds more to answer in the next few weeks. Ugh. The time factor in having to deal with this is killing me. Emails are ranging from, "who the hell are you and why are you sending me a Goodreads thing?" to automatic responses from the phone company and other utilities, etc. To "I didn't know I was a member of Goodreads!" (Goodreads vaguely masks their intentions for the email in the first place when they send it to people), to "Hi Lizzy! I haven't talked with you in a while" to unfortunately, a couple of ex-boyfriends who are non-too-thrilled to hear from me. Yes, this is a nightmare.

And it could have been easily prevented if Goodreads simply DID NOT HAVE MY CONTACTS AUTOMATICALLY CHECKED AS 'SEND TO' BY DEFAULT and made it more clear from a visibility standpoint that they were. That's the hostile part on their part. They haven't changed Jack since Nancy's same issue last year.

I have done some research in the past few hours and now believe 100% that Goodreads is absolutely and intentionally stealing valuable e-mail addresses by doing business in this manner. There are several complaints with them from others for the same issues and yet they refuse to do anything. They do offer an "opt out of future emails" option for those they, but (classic example) it is at the bottom of the page in teeny-tiny font and they require an email address and then they try to get that person's contacts! Really, really evil.

The sad part is that I like the concept of Goodreads. I loved keeping track of all the books I have read in my life, sharing them with others and getting new recommendations. And I'm generally a brand loyalist when I love something, and I work hard to spread the word loud and far about a brand I like. Goodreads and the people that run it, blew it with me. I will never ever support them again. I just can not get behind a company with such contempt for their user community.

Not sure what I'm going to do, but certainly write them a letter, and probably more. I wonder if they have any formal complaints filed against them. U do know however, that I will be using them as a case study of bad business practices in an upcoming conference I am presenting at. Yes, I will post this presentation on the web.

Amy,

I have just forwarded your article to the folks at Mozilla. Their latest browser, Firefox 3.0, is supposed to warn people about sites like GoodRead. Let's hope they take your report seriously.

Robert

Thanks, Robert W. Please spread the word. This is just reprehensible. And somebody please Digg this. And write a good headline so it gets picked up.

Here's the e-mail I just sent to Otis@goodreads.com:

I'm a friend of Jackie Danicki's and Nancy Rommelmann's, and a blogger, and somebody who knew the honorable guy you were named for. I'm shocked at your business practices. Consider yourself lucky that I don't have access to your home phone number, because I just tried you at the one I found in Santa Monica, which is now a non-working number.

Here's my blog item on the hell you're causing for this poor woman who seemed to have e-mailed me last night -- somebody I barely know, met once, who had my e-mail address in the address book hijacked by your site.

http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2008/07/06/beware_of_goodr.html

If your site is so great, why do you have to scam people into joining it?

Think of this girl, Lizzy, now spending her Sunday e-mailing countless people back to explain. You're lucky it seems I didn't get my address book hijacked by you -- after you made it seem, in the e-mail from Lizzy, like I was on your site. I got worried and went over, and tried to sign in, but was too smart to sign up after I realized it was a scam, an auto e-mail from you saying she'd seen me on the site. How utterly disgusting.

If it were me this happened to, I'd sue your ass for my time and reputational damage. And I just sued a telemarketer in Santa Monica Small Claims court, a telemarketer which sent their New York counsel. I won -- partially, on California telemarketing law, and partially on the grounds that you can't take my time without paying me for it. And, if you're honorable, you shouldn't try. --Amy Alkon

As I always say, DON'T MESS WITH AMY!!

You totally ROCK!

Dot Mac is great. If somebody steals your local machine, everything's gone. I forget the name of the author, but they gave her an award at LA Times Festival of Books, and she lost years and years work in a fire.

I'm having trouble parsing this, maybe because I'm dense. Is the comment about Dot Mac something separate from the local machine bit?

Fire and complete home theft are really the only contingencies I don't have completely covered - I do have a fireproof safe, but it's not media rated, so there's no guarantee that tapes will survive. My off-site backup generally consists of me grabbing a tape when I go away for an extended period. Were I to do the off-site thing, I'd probably go with the mom's house route, or a heavily-encrypted ZIP file on my hosting account.

My biggest fear with off-site backup services is that they will go out of business, and my data ends up in the hands of whomever acquires the assets, and they aren't bound by any privacy restrictions. My second biggest fear is that they'll lose the media with my stuff on it, and I'm in the same boat.

Dot Mac is a backup service you pay for (it comes with Mac.com e-mail, which I don't use). I use it when I'm at a cafe, backing up to my Dot Mac account, in case somebody comes by and steals my computer or I have some data loss. If I can't access it, I back up to a flash drive.

I don't think Apple computer will be going out of biz anytime soon. And you remove the data from your folder at any time. Just pull it out and throw it in your trash.

Thanks, Maggie...and what's amazing is how Otis Chandler has the nerve to pop around on blogs like this one:

http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/2007/10/dont-register-f.html

To say that Goodreads is different. Here's the comment he left on Beth's Blog, on her entry about how Shelfari hijacks your address book:

If you all are looking for a more user-friendly service, I built a site called Goodreads that also helps you see what your friends are reading (and it doesn't spam people).

Check it out: Goodreads.com
Posted by: Otis | November 01, 2007 at 12:01 AM

Just disgusting. "Doesn't spam people"? Well, no, not unless you go by the notion that spamming somebody is sending unwanted mail to all the names you've hijacked from their address book.

Just to share more of my pain with you this morning, this is an example of the type of emails I'm now having to respond to due to Goodreads Shanghaiing my contact list. In this case, this email came from the president of a web development firm I am working with for a client of mine. And if the president of a web development firm thinks its a problem, then yeah, it is a problem. At least this person was savvy enough to call goodreads for what they are: a virus.

"Lizzy,
I think your computer may have sent this out to everyone in your address book. It may be a virus or trojan."

Just disgusting, all the worry this is causing people, and the time it's sucking.

As I just e-mailed Lizzy:

I'd keep track of your time spent clearing this up (answering all the e-mails) and send Otis an invoice for it.

I'm serious. I've gotten money from businesses where I showed time spent, and pointed out that my time is not free.

Something similar was discussed on Jeff Atwood's blog as Please Give Us Your Email Password. Jeff was talking about a site called Yelp that wanted to check your contacts.

It boils down to NEVER, EVER, give a foreign site a way into your e-mail account.

Any that ask for it are essentially nothing but evil.

Thanks for that link. So, people actually give the password to their e-mail? I would NEVER do that.

Nancy Rommelmann just e-mailed me:

Hi all - As Jackie knows, I blogged about goodreads and their horrible spamming practice last year. And the thing is, it really is covert; it's not as though you're at fault for not unchecking something. I -- as did Jackie -- got a super-smarmy letter from Otis, saying they were so sorry and they'd be changing their practices. Bullshit.

As some of you know (but not Amy), I am away for the month of July, and my internet connection is nil; I am sitting in my mother's car in a parking lot glomming off a local realtor's here on MV; consequently, I am rarely online and not blogging at all. That said, blogging girls, you have my full permission to quote or link from anything of mine in your posts, including that Otis is a liar.
Love you xx

www.nancyrommelmann.com

And she's right. Goodreads is not snaring grannies and web novices in their spam scam. Google around and you'll see all sorts of smart people who've been fooled by them.

Thanks so much for the heads up on this, Amy, and I'm sorry your friends are going through such crap because of this selfish asshole.

More pain. Just wanted to share. Not how I planned to spend a beautiful Sunday, but it will only be worse tomorrow when people are back at work checking out their emails. Sigh. I suppose tomorrow will be nothing but spending time responding to emails like the ones below:

"So, do we know each other? Was I in your address book??"

and

"They really had me going too! This sounds exactly like what you would say to me in an email: "Nice to see you on Goodreads. I'm interested to see what you've been reading lately."..."

and this one from an nice older, but not so internet savvy PR lady I know who I bet has now been duped into Goodreads sending to her whole email contact list too:

"Well hello Lizzy, good to hear from you! I didn’t know I was on Good Reads…..I just went to the site and couldn’t find my entry. Hmmm."

Sigh

Ok, one last one. This one is from one of my clients who is the CEO of a multi-million dollar company. I am so glad that he is nice, since goodreads spam could have cost me a job and my reputation with him.

"No worries Lizzy.....but I am glad you explained it because I was puzzled. Hope you are having a good night"

Ahhh. Damage control due to Goodreads. No fun.

Again, I just hate the time, stress, and aggravation this is causing you. If you weren't home doing damage control on a Sunday afternoon, what else might you be doing?

No word from Odious Chandler yet. I can't wait for him to post some remark like he has on other blogs, that they don't spam. Right. Usually, right below his remark, people who have experienced otherwise post their complaints.

I would be in beautiful green fields on a beautiful green island picking raspberries and buying cucumbers, making pickles at home, and catching up on much needed sleep and my own book list.

Seriously.

I am however putting together a PowerPoint with words, pictures and other solid examples on how exactly Goodreads is in the wrong here, their onerous and unchanged history with this issue, and what Goodreads needs to do to fix it, pronto, as well as the potential negative risks and ramifications to their company for continuing to operate this way. The PowerPoint should be up on Slideshare.com soon (maybe tomorrow) for anyone to read, link to, embed in their sites, and for SEO to pick up on. I'll keep you posted.

Honestly, Goodreads is a classic case study (and an easy one) on how NOT to run a social networking site.

Turns out it was his grandfather who owned the finest sportscar of all time. So, like, fuck 'im. You blogger women, you go ahead and do what you need to do.

I decided to perform a little experiment to see for myself to see if goodreads is truly that vile. Conclusion: Sorta. But it is confusing.

I created a new free live.com e-mail address and added to my contacts all my personal e-mail addresses (I have 9 of them). So, I would be the only one goodreads could spam.

I signed up for goodreads. Gave them my password to my new e-mail account. Sure enough, screen comes up asking if I want to see if any of my friends are also goodreads members.
I click "next" and up pops my contact list (all 9 of my personal e-mail addresses) and a prompt asking me if I want to send out invites. I have the option to uncheck some or all of the contacts.

I can see where this is confusing--you say, "yes," that you want to see which of your friends is already a member. When your contact list pops on the next screen up you might think that these are the contacts that already are members (ie, have registered their e-mails with goodreads)--not just your contact list. It's misleading.

BUT...

As part of my experiment I unchecked half my e-mail addresses, leaving the rest checked. Then, I logged into all my accounts to see if goodreads had spammed them.

Although the ones I left checked had received the "I'd like to connect with you on Goodreads so we can share book recommendations" e-mail, the ones I left unchecked had NOT.

So, it would seem that goodreads HAS changed since what happened to Nancy (ie, it only sends e-mail to the names you leave checked--not, as she says, your entire address book).

Still, it's pretty awful. The default setting is having ALL your contacts' boxes checked--one accidental click of the mouse or failure to read the screen carefully, and everyone you've e-mailed since the last millennium gets spammed. Lovely.

Your more tech-savvy contacts will be able to figure it out probably (anyone who uses facebook sees a similar screen every time they try to download an application--although facebook doesn't actually e-mail any of those people--it just sends a request to their facebook profiles.).

Also, the return address that the e-mail comes from is "noreply@mail.goodreads.com." I'd take one look at that and think, "oh...spam." But the reply-to address IS your own, so someone who didn't look at the e-mail carefully would think it came from you. Lovely.

Lizzy Canton is no dummy, nor are some of the people you see blogging about how they were fooled. Also, you get blind e-mails from many places these days...friends who want you to see pieces in the newspaper they've auto-forwarded you. As Jackie pointed out on her blog or Nancy's, these sites go through plenty of testing...it is unlikely it's any mystery to them that they are fooling people. Also, even before they supposedly changed it, Odious Chandler was going around on blogs selling their site as one that was different from the address-sucking sites. Right.

And P.S. I can't say for sure whether Lizzy left my e-mail address checked, but the e-mail they sent me, how she "saw" me on Goodreads, was a lie. Yeah, in her address book, perhaps. This is a business model of theft -- and of people's time and reputation -- and it's disgusting.

Somebody, please, get me Otis Chandler's home phone number.

Well, what's even more ironic is that I am pretty "tech savvy". For the past 12 years have helped design, test, and manage websites from a content and visual information clarity perspective for government, corporations, non-profits, etc. I have specifically worked on projects where we design and test for these same issues. And Goodreads still managed to trick me.

As you know, there are subtle ways to create user interfaces on websites to lead people to do, or not do things using language, font, resin element placement, and things like automatic defaults. An honest web company takes these issues into consideration, such as warning pop-ups (i.e. "you are about to send invites to all of your contacts, are you sure you want to do that?") or makes provides a much clearer user feedback ( that's tech talk) for understanding what will happen next.

In addition, I was already a member of Goodreads when the invite went out on Saturday, but hadn't logged in in a while. Goodreads automatically took me to the "would you like to see who of your friends, etc screen." then after I clicked next took me automatically to the next invite screen. Sure, I was the one responsible for hitting the send button but the design and user feedback on that page is so bad, that it is designed (such as contacts automatically checked as send to by default), that it was
an accident waiting to happen.

Goodreads has had complaints about this since 2007. They refuse to do anything. Its a hostile form of business that is misleading, baiting, and a subtle form of spam. And it sucks because I am the one still dealing with the communications mess created by their website.

Lizzy - It's nice to know that I'm not the only programmer that's fed up with broken (intentionally or otherwise) user experiences on what ought to be simple systems.

I guess the question becomes "how do we get the masochists out of interface design?"

I just re-read my post, and I hope noone thinks I was saying that ANYONE who got robbed of their time and sanity is in some way ignorant or not careful enough.

My comment about being tech-savvy referred to the contacts who are getting these e-mails, not the victims who register with goodreads...for example, my mom would probably get the spam and send me back an e-mail asking me about the site and why the hell I would send her such an e-mal, whereas some of my friends would immediately look at the "from" address and realize that it came from a spambot--also, they're used to getting these random messages from things like facebook that send invites to all your friends whenever you add an application. They're more likely to take a second look, assume it's some kind of spam and move on, rather than hit "reply" and ask the victim about it.

...When I registered, I did so because I was curious to see if they'd changed their policies in any way, and it looks like they may have, if only slightly--although I think sending out e-mails that say "I'd like to connect with you on goodreads" is no better than whatever they were sending out before.

...and I also wanted to see if they actually DO send it to everyone in your e-mail contacts, whether you checked their box or not. It would seem that now, at least, they do not do this. But it doesn't make their practices any better.

sofar, gotcha. My points exactly. Who knows if the email went to all my contacts but I'm now on email 153 explaining and apologizing to people in my contacts who received the Goodreads Spam, and that is
153 too many people as it is. Even the tech savvy ones are perplexed ( like the CEO of a web company I mentioned above).

I'm no coder, I just work with programmers, but I think public shaming of companies that do this is a good approach since it can bring them bad PR and attention. Also, maybe a class action lawsuit at somepoint will need to occur. Who knows?

Ah, some of the emails I am getting from my contacts are priceless though.

Yeah, it's awful, especially because, as you point out in your last post, they could just as easily have a message pop up saying that, by clicking "next," you agree to have an invitation sent to all members of your contact list...and then make you click "I agree" or something to that effect.

I, for one, am guilty of just clicking "next" whenever I'm trying to get somewhere on a website--I just assume it's an ad or something, so I just click "next...next...next" until I get to where I want to go. I don't even want to think of some of the awkwardness that would be created if Goodreads spammed everyone in my address book.

Political campaigns do this too. My friend was mortified when she registered for an Obama mailing list. Same thing: took her to a screen that asked her for an e-mail password if she wanted to see which of her friends were also on the list. Next thing I know, I'm getting e-mails supposedly from my friend written in FIRST PERSON about why I need to vote for Obama and signed with her name. They even had a casual salutation (something like, "Hey it's Katie, listen, I've been thinking a lot about this upcoming election...") I got suspicious, though, about the number of statistics and #s in the e-mail and checked the "from address." Spambot. But the "reply-to" e-mail address was hers. Fortunately, she registered w/ a personal e-mail, so it didn't go to any coworkers--just some ex's, some family members, and people she hadn't talked to since high school. She was mortified.

GoodReads got back to me. Sound lamely familiar?

"Hi Liz,

I sincerely apologize for any inconvenience you have experienced. We have tried to make our address book importers as clear as possible, and please be assured we will use your feedback to continue to do so. We *never* send emails without you confirming on the next page which contacts you'd like to send to.

Best,

Tessa"

I know this is an old post now, but I just got this email in my inbox from a business contact and I can't tell if he wrote it or if GoodReads has updated their spam-like-substance message. If they have, it's an almost insultingly cheeky way to do so:
"I'm totally spamming you in order to "connect" with you on some ridiculous social networking site. You're seeing the same form message that dozens of other of my acquaintances are seeing. This must be quite insulting."

So, has anyone else gotten this from GoodReads, or was this message actually written by my contact?

Goodreads is for shit- Jim and his wife - Elizabeth are creapy & live like hoarders in sm- take them down. They fly my addy book & I'm out fir revenge- they are two Stanford reject wanna bes

So how does one get back at Goodreads? I mean to spam all my contacts - I am getting bombarded with questions, emails and smart ass comments from people in my address book - if you try to find contact information - they only have an email address. I wonder why.

the guy that runs it- Otis and his wife appear to be something they are not.... in truth - this company is just desperate for exposure and traffic.

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Here's soemthing else people may not know about Goodreads. If you click on their Terms of Service it states:

"5. Eligibility

This Service is intended solely for Users who are thirteen (13) years of age or older, and any registration, use or access to the Service by anyone under 13 is unauthorized, unlicensed, and in violation of this Agreement. If you are under 18 years of age you may use the Service only if you either are an emancipated minor or possess legal parental or guardian consent, and are fully able and competent to enter into the terms, conditions, obligations, affirmations, representations, and warranties set forth in this Agreement, and to abide by and comply with this Agreement."

If you have an autistic teen (which means they are NOT fully able and competent to enter into the terms outlined in the Agreement) and if that teen does NOT have permission from his or her legal parent of guardian to have an account at Goodreads, Patrick Brown -- the community manager, among other things at Goodreads -- informs concerned parents who dare contact Goodreads that it's just too darn bad that the kid has an account with them and they just don't care to follow their own Terms Of Service Agreement.

Yes, it would appear that those Terms Of Service on the Goodreads website are there for show ... not because they really abide by them or expect others to abide by them.