HUNGARY-L Archives

From: "W. David Samuelsen" <>
Subject: [HUNGARY-L] Dishonest & Deceptive site - STAY AWAY FROM IT!
Date: Sun, 01 Nov 1998 16:36:33 -0800

Why??? Read on! and please do not make any further comments on any
lists.
W. David Samuelsen, listowner

This tell you much and self explanatory...this was forwarded to me
for further distribution to your attention. I added the [comments]
for your better information, plus Dr. Brian Leverich's response.

[Deceptive] Genealogy Web Site Sells Your Name and E-mail Address

It's a tough world. Lots of businesses sell their customer lists
these days. The result is that you get junk mail and marketing
phone calls from all sorts of companies trying to sell you
something you probably don't want. The newest twist is "spam
mail", unwanted e-mails that advertise all sorts of junk. Now a
well-known genealogy Web site is contributing to the spam mail
that you receive and apparently is profiting from personal
information that they obtain from you under the guise of helping
you do genealogy research. In fact, the Web site apparently is a
"front", as the main purpose seems to be gathering personal
information about you and then selling that information.

The Family Tree House Web site at http://www.usaafter.com claims
that it is "the Association for FamilyTree Enrollment and
Registry." The home page says, "This site offers free family tree
software and links to key genealogy sites. The software is
available on-line. You can build your FamilyTree House in real
time, no downloading is required."

They also say, "...you can create and register your own on-line
FamilyTree. And because it is on-line, you can enlist the help of
other family members by giving them your personal access code to
allow them to fill in the missing branches--it's a project the
whole family can participate in no matter where they live." On
another page the site advises, "When requesting information,
please make sure you include your name, mailing address and the
information you would like."

After they collect all the personal information from you and your
other family members, the owners of Family Tree House apparently
package the information and sell it to other companies that send
junk mail or spam e-mails. On a different Web site, the owners of
Family Tree House offer "a file of 33,600 last-12-month
registrants of the Family Tree House, an association that offers
Web site members free software and links to genealogy sites." The
file they sell reportedly contains information about each person's
date of birth, gender, e-mail address, state and ZIP code. The Web
advertisement says that the file contains listings for 33,600
people who have left personal information on the Family Tree House
site.

To check for yourself, first look at http://www.usaafter.com and
then look at:
http://www.mediacentral.com/Magazines/DirectNewsline/Archive/1998100910.htm
[look at the 2nd section - it is talking about the same thing]

[Dr. Brian Leverich's (he is the one running the Rootsweb.com) response
below]

his isn't the first time this has happened.
>
>GeoCities has been cheerfully selling its information about its
>members to whoever wanted to buy it for as long as I can remember.
>They were sufficiently blatant about it that the FTC finally sat on
>them just a few months ago.
>
>Most of the other "free" sites probably do the same thing.
>
>The thing that really worries me is the feeling that the information
>we gather with our query systems and such at sites like GeoCities
>will eventually be sold to marketeers.
>
>I don't think it's a matter of "if" -- I think it's a matter of
>"when". The Board and the SCs probably ought to be thinking about
>how they are going to regain the confidence of the community after
>some site like GeoCities sells some business like Broderbund a list
>of e-mail addresses that appear on genealogical Websites they host.
>
>At risk of patting ourselves on the back, this is one problem will
>never arise at RootsWeb. First of all, we think this is a *really*
>slimey practice and can't imagine anyone with more moral fiber than
>an earthworm selling information to marketeers. Apart from that, we
>couldn't sell information even if we were slimey devils; RootsWeb is
>funded by voluntary contributions, and those contributions would dry
>up in a heartbeat and we'd die eventually if we were ever anything
>other than squeaky-clean in the way we operate.
>
>Cheers, B.

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• [HUNGARY-L] Dishonest & Deceptive site - STAY AWAY FROM IT! by "W. David Samuelsen" <>