Viadeo is an international social network sometimes described as a LinkedIn competitor. With a minimalist-designed website in English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, and Portuguese, it impresses the unsuspecting viewer as a serious, professional organization. The note “40 million professionals,” positioned at the top of the homepage, serves to drive this message further.
Yet Viadeo lacks one of the most fundamental internet etiquette practices of our time. Its email solicitations, presumably initiated by Viadeo “members,” do not include a single, direct REMOVE link. In addition to the ugly, aggressive internet marketing method used by Viadeo, this may actually put it on the wrong side of the law in the US. Something worth looking into.
Instead of providing a simple, direct removal link, the unfortunate recipient of unsolicited membership “invites” from Viadeo — SPAM by layman’s definition — is required to register for Viadeo membership before s/he can request to have themselves removed from the Viadeo system altogether — on the assumption that such total removal is in fact done, something that this writer is not prepared to test.
This is akin to offering a rapist a second round in order to get him to leave you alone…
Indeed, it is hard to believe that any personal-data gatherer would fully let go — permanently and irreversibly delete all such data, including from backup files and older historical files — such that they, or the companies that buy their operation years later cannot retrieve and reconstruct personal information. It is even more unlikely that such capability, or interest, exists among companies that fail to meet the most basic privacy standards commonly used across the industry.
It appears others have had their share of complaints about the Viadeo aggressive email practices, described by this blogger to automatically emailing all their contacts membership solicitations. Furthermore, this suggests a planned, systematic and very aggressive approach to personal-data harvesting, which may be the very business model of Viadeo.
Beware of Viadeo! It is highly recommended you NOT join it, and NOT agree to receive unsolicited, spamming, email offers sent by Viadeo. Instead, write them. In fact, why not send them a link to this story? they might, just might, choose to change their ways.
If you find this story helpful, why not share it on your network or post a link to it on your blog? Greater distribution will help send the message to Viadeo, once its aggressive marketing folks find this and similar stories when they Google Viadeo.
Who knows, they might even reconsider their ugly, aggressive manners…
