WalkerPad

Me.

I was about to sign up with AMIE st to down load the new Barenakedladies CD. AMIE st apparently is selling it without DRM, and that is a business model I totally want to support but hell if I can agree to their user agreement which basically says we can and will do whatever the hell we want with your personal information including rent or sell to any one that want to pony up to us. *YIKES*.

Now on the one hand I want to give them some credit for being upfront in the user agreement but it’s still to much to bear. They need to rethink this strategy of theirs and allow people to just be their customers without basically saying w are going to spam you and so is everyone we do business with. I think if they check around they might find most folks would not knowingly agree to this and merely click through as a robotic process. Taking advantage of that is pretty predatory and all to common, is that the company they want to be… Not being on the DRM band wagon suggests they are smarter then that.

To wit

“3 By agreeing to this Agreement, you expressly agree that AMIE may use your personal information, including without limitation, to:

1. 6 Provide you with content, services, instructions, and a more personalized experience based on personal information, such as your zip/postal code and any content or other preferences you provide; and
2. 7 Provide you with news, free newsletters, updates, targeted advertising, promotions and other related offers.”

Combined with

“However, by agreeing to this Agreement, you acknowledge and agree that AMIE may sell, rent, or share your non-personally-identifiable information to a third party. The third party’s use of such information is governed by the privacy policy of the third party and AMIE’s use is governed by AMIE’s privacy policy. By your use of the SERVICE, you expressly agree that AMIE is not liable to you, or responsible for, the alleged improper or misuse by any such third party of this non-personally-identifiable information.”

Nowhere do they disclose what information is supplied/sold to 3rd parties or even properly clairfy what non-personally-identifiable means to them. and then…
“AMIE also may disclose relevant information about AMIE’s customers to its contractors (e.g., a customer service contractor or a credit card clearing service) in order for the contractors to provide specific services for AMIE and for AMIE to better serve its customers. AMIE’s contractors are bound by strict contractual requirements to keep all personal information they process strictly confidential and to use such information solely on behalf of AMIE.”

Which is just funny, if you look at the kind of data leaks that happen external to companies, that is nothing compared to the integral data leakage. How long before sales gets at the information, not long… and sing AMIE st is not liable what do they are care anyway.

Anyway, bit of rant. I’ll sing the privacy statement that says we will never sell or rent any of your data in any form to anyone even if we are acquired, liquidated or bought out.

Guess I’ll just go buy the CD with some cash and rip it, shame.

To be fair their are much MUCH worse privacy polices out there, I was just disappointed by this one because I wanted to support them.

This grabed my attention at http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2007-03/barenaked-and-drm-free/

Edit: fixed some really dumb typos :p

1. Elias Says:

   March 7th, 2007 at 8:44 pm Edit this.
   Visit EliasHey man, sorry our user agreement came off so poorly- we definitely don’t have intentions to sell your email address and stuff like that, though I can see how the language is pretty aggressive to that effect. Definitely hit me up if I can answer any questions about it, but we’d love to have you be part of the site and promise to be respectful of your privacy!!
   -Elias

2. Griffon Says:

   March 8th, 2007 at 12:18 pm Edit this.
   Visit GriffonThat’s nice but it would better said in the user agreement where it has teeth . I would like to buy some stuff but this is non starter for me as it stand now and problem a lot of other folks.

   Also mandating that user will receive news letter etc. instead of making it opt in is not supper friendly IMO. In fact it really flys in the face of opt in system which is what you should have for all marketing related activities.

   Don’t make barriers or speed bumps between your potential customers money and you by making them join a bunch of junk that they very well don’t want or care about. Mandating that in user agreement… just seems wrong to me.