From the desk of the Privacy Officer...

David Coursey recently wrote an article titled, "Beware of 'Free' Services". In the article, he voices concerns over "What might these companies do, especially with personal information, when they become desperate for money? Or when the new owner arrives on the scene? "

As the Privacy Officer here at Plaxo responsible for addressing Privacy, Security, and Trust issues pertaining to the usage of Plaxo, I wanted to address some of the privacy concerns that David touches on.

I believe David voices a common concern many people have regarding privacy policies. Many people believe that promises made within an organization's privacy policy are unenforceable and meaningless. After all, who really has jurisdiction over privacy policies and even if there did exist an oversite agency, couldn't an organization simply change their policy at any time to suit their needs?

At Plaxo, we certainly believe that Privacy Policies are enforeable and meaningful.

The fact is promises made within privacy policies are enforceable, specifically by the FTC. People may be familiar with Section 5 of the FTC Act, which declares "unfair or deceptive acts" are declared unlawful. The FTC has demonstrated in the past that an organization's failure to live up to published privacy practices are considered "unfair or deceptive" and the FTC has taken corrective action to protect consumers in these cases.

In the case of Plaxo, our Plaxo Privacy Policy sums up our privacy practices within the following principles:

• Your Information is your own and you decide who will have access to it.
  
• You maintain ownership rights to Your Information, even if there is a business transition or policy change.
  
• You may add, delete, or modify Your Information at any time.
  
• Plaxo will not update or modify Your Information without your permission.
  
• Plaxo will not sell, exchange, or otherwise share Your Information with third parties, unless required by law or in accordance with your instructions.
  
• Plaxo does not send spam, maintain spam mailing lists, or support the activities of spammers.
  

We feel this is one of the most stringent privacy policies around. Plaxo has committed not to sell, rent, exchange or otherwise share information about its members with any third party, unless required by law or in accordance with the member's instructions. Even ZiffDavis's own privacy policy, that people agree to in order to post to that free service, does not makes such a promise. You can also compare Plaxo to many other popular services.

But the question remains, can't an organization simply change their privacy policy at any time?

The answer is yes, but the FTC Act also covers material changes to privacy policies. In speaking with an FTC official at a recent IAPP/TRUSTe Privacy Symposium, I was told the FTC operates under the concept that "a privacy policy walks with the information". In the recent case between the FTC and Gateway Learning, Howard Beales, Director of the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection, summed it up by stating, "You can change the rules but not after the game has been played." I direct you to the FTC site for more information: http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2004/07/gateway.htm

As you know, privacy law is a new area of the law and therefore very much still in a state of flux -- in state and federal statutes, court rulings, and enforcement by government agencies. We are committed to monitoring the evolution of privacy law and making appropriate changes to our Privacy Policy, consistent with our goal of providing optimal protection of the privacy rights of our members.

But these issues aside, trust is essential to our business. Any violation of the provisions in our privacy policy would undermine the trust we have established with users of our service. We realize in order to be successful we must continually earn that trust from both members as well as non-members. We strive to operate in an open and public fashion and allow people to judge for themselves. Our Plaxo Privacy Policy is one such example of our public statement.

I hope this helps. People can feel free to comment on our Plaxo Customer Forum, or contact me directly.

Stacy Martin
Plaxo Privacy Officer
privacy @t plaxo.com

If you don't use Plaxo, you may have gotten an e-mail from a friend or colleague asking you to update your contact information. The e-mail links you to a Web page that lets you fill out as much or as little information as you'd like to share (via a secure web form). Previously, you had to re-enter this information every time you got such a request util you decided to join Plaxo yourself (at which point you can just maintain your own cards and share them without any e-mails). But recently we've added a new option to save your contact information when replying to an update request so you don't have to keep re-typing it.

All you have to do is check the "save my info" box and create a password the next time you respond an update request. After that, if another Plaxo member asks you for your contact information, you can just click to send some or all of the information you previously entered. If you decide to download Plaxo and become a full member, your cards will be pre-populated and ready-to-go. It's a great way to start benefiting from Plaxo without downloading any software or managing your own address book. Give it a try next time a friend or colleague asks you for your latest information!

From the desk of the Privacy Officer�

Summer is fast coming to an end and for many that means school is starting up again.

A good portion of our membership base comes from education domains, but I still feel there�s tremendous opportunity for wider adoption of Plaxo within the educational ranks. I�ve always felt that Plaxo is the perfect tool for education users, whether they be students just entering college, recent college graduates, or even the college institutions themselves.

Just looking at the US, over 4.5 million students enter or exit the college ranks each year. For students, if you take into account the number of times you�ll change residences, change phone numbers, change cell numbers, change e-mail addresses, etc�, there�s a lot of things going on during your college years. You may want to keep in touch with friends from high school or family back at home. And during college, you�ll likely form some of your most significant relationships that can continue to help you in both your professional and personal lives long after graduation. Plaxo can help to keep you connected to all of these people.

For institutions, there�s the constant struggle of staying in touch with alumni and boosters. I recall an Alumni official once telling me, �Lost alumni tell no tales, and they don�t donate either�. I remember thinking, �Arg, Matey!�.

Are you a student who uses Plaxo? If so, tell us about your experience with Plaxo and how you use it. I�d also love to hear any suggestions people might have on how Plaxo could gain wider adoption within education domains.

�til next time.

Stacy Martin
Plaxo Privacy Officer
privacy @t plaxo.com

From the desk of the Privacy Officer.....

First - I�d like to send out my congratulations to one of our server engineers who recently took the big plunge and got married. Congratulations, Ryan, and best of luck!

His wedding reminds me back to my own special day. I recall it being a great day surrounded by hundreds of friends and family, and perhaps a few of people I didn�t know. And I also remember the tremendous effort involved with inviting all of these people.

It was certainly a monumental task trying to track down all of the family and friends I hadn�t heard from in years. Of course, we wanted to avoid committing a major faux pas by forgetting to invite someone like Uncle Billy�s second cousin once removed. But unfortunately, most of us had moved several times over the years, and we simply hadn�t bothered to keep up. I suspect that I�m not alone in this regard.

But today, Plaxo helps with this exact type of problem. I can keep all of my friends and family within my Address Book managed by Plaxo. If they too become Plaxo members, we can automatically stay updated with each other anytime either of us moves, changes emails, phone numbers, etc� If they aren�t Plaxo members, I can still send them my updated information quickly and easily and automatically incorporate their changes into my address book anytime they respond back to me. If I were getting married today, Plaxo could certainly help to make one aspect of the wedding experience easier.

Fortunately for our wedding though, after much trial and tribulation, we were able to invite everyone we wanted. Uncle Billy and family even gave us a gift. But Plaxo sure would have made the whole job a lot easier.

Feel free to add your own comments.

�til next time.

Stacy Martin
Plaxo Privacy Officer
privacy @t plaxo.com

Continuing Plaxo's interest in the Friend-of-a-Friend Project (FOAF), one of our senior engineers (Joseph Smarr) will be attending the upcoming FOAF Workshop in Galway, Ireland. Joseph will present Plaxo's experiences with trying to integrate FOAF in a talk entitled "Technical and Privacy Challenges for Integrating FOAF into Existing Applications" and sit on a panel entitled "I want my data back" along with Marc Canter, Julian Bond, and others. We're looking forward to meeting the rest of the FOAF community face-to-face and discussing how FOAF can be scaled up to the point that large services like Plaxo can take advantage of it while giving their members sufficient flexibility and protecting their privacy.

See the full FOAF Workshop programme at http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/Europe/events/foaf-galway/programme.html. If you're going to be there, or you have any questions or comments you'd like to relay, feel free to contact Joseph at joseph-foaf@plaxo.com.

We just released some new features for Plaxo Online that you might want to check out:

• New: Automatically import your Yahoo! Address Book - now you can automatically import your Yahoo! Address Book into Plaxo simply by entering your Yahoo! ID and password. You can find Yahoo! Auto Import during Plaxo Online registration or by clicking "Import" in the top-right of contacts.
• New: Folder Manager - allows you to rename and delete your Plaxo Online folders. Lots of our users asked for greater control of their folders, particularly when they're using Plaxo across multiple computers. To access the folder manager, select "manage folders" from the folder pull-down menu in contacts, or click "manage your folders" in the upper-right of calendar, tasks, or notes.
• New: Card Sharing Manager - this lets you see everyone that you've shared your private cards with and lets you easily grant and revoke permissions. It provides a nice snapshot of your connected Plaxo network.
• Improved: Account Settings - we've simplified and slightly reorganized the account settings page to make it more powerful and intuitive. There's a new "Your E-mail Addresses" section that shows you all the e-mail addresses you're using with Plaxo and makes it easy to edit or delete them and to change your primary e-mail address.

Stay tuned for more coming soon, and as always, let us know if you have any problems or suggestions.

Thanks,
The Plaxo Team