Hello, this is in response to a post I recieved from another genealogy user list. I submit it for your awareness and I have added my own comments. It involves a "FREE" genealogy site that is apparently selling the information it gains from its subscriber base. If you are not interested, feel free to DELETE this message. I have checked the site out and it appears to be a "ploy" to subscribe members into an associatation that are then eligible for "discounts" on everything from insurance to mutual funds. If you try to go to the link at the end of the message, you may get incorrectly directed as the URL tends to get truncated. Add the "truncated line" to that URL and you will find the following message: Family Tree House Software Registrants This is 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. Members are also qualified for group rate discounts on a variety of family oriented services including information on insurance and healthcare plans, travel programs and mutual funds available at the site. Cost: $85/M Selections: Date of birth, gender, e-mail address, state/SCF/ZIP Contact: RMI Direct Marketing Inc., 203-798-0448 For those that may not be informed, the $85/M is the cost of the list...$85 per thousand names. My comment on this site is that if they...or any site...wishes to offer services to the public for the purpose of building either membership or mailing lists, FINE. But they should inform you at registration that you may be either solicited or added to marketing lists for solicitation purposes. In fact, that is what most online "E-zines" are...free informational services that are subsudized by ads placed inside the "zine" itself. I know that going in and understand it, very much like the ads that are placed in TIME or NEWSWEEK. I subscribe to many of these types of E-zines. But I have a problem with being in lists that are sold...any lists, and I have a problem with NOT being informed that my name may be sold in a list. *********** BEGIN FORWARDED MESSAGE *********** On 10/31/98, at 10:16 PM, Jerry Wright Jordan <jjordan2@ix.netcom.com> wrote: I subscribe to the Eastman's Online Genealogy Newswletter. The following article was in the latest edition that I just received. IT IS IMPORTANT TO YOUR PRIVACY - READ IT! Jerry The following article is from Eastman's Online Genealogy Newsletter and is copyright 1998 by Richard W. Eastman and Ancestry, Inc. It is re-published here with the permission of the author. - 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 -- Jerry Wright Jordan email: jjordan2@ix.netcom.com List owner: WRIGHT Family Discussion List Web Pages: Cherokee pages: http://www.tngenweb.usit.com/cherokee_by_blood/index.htm WRIGHT pages: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Bluffs/9335/index.html WRIGHTs in NC Pages: http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Bluffs/9335/wright/nc.html *********** END FORWARDED MESSAGE *********** -- Don Watson mailto:dwatson@texas.net County Coordinator, TXGenWeb Page for Blanco County http://lonestar.texas.net/~dwatson/blanco