Do You Trust Web 2.0?
A big part of the success of web 2.0 is trust. Sites that fall into this category (if we may call it so) have little ads, and exercise an honest, straightforward approach in the vein of: “we won’t give away your e-mail. No, we really won’t.”
But is it true?
Before my summer vacation (I’m back, thanks for asking), I’ve been doing some research on a topic and I’ve registered on a number of training/fat loss/dieting/exercise related websites, most of which could be defined as “Web 2.0″. All of them, of course, claim that they will not under any circumstances send me spam or give my e-mail address to anyone.
And yet, hundreds of dieting-related spam messages - the kind I haven’t been receiving earlier - now sit in my Inbox. Coincidence? I don’t think so.
Before you ask, I have a special e-mail account for these type of use. Spam won’t hurt me much there. It’s not a big deal.
But still, shouldn’t I be able to trust these sites? It sounded so simple: they’re cool guys/girls; they care; they won’t give away my e-mail; they won’t send me crap; they’ll take care of my privacy.
I guess when you grow there’s bills to pay, and when simple advertising doesn’t cut it, you have to resort to other methods. Just another piece of proof that the age of Web 2.0 innocence is long gone.
August 21st, 2007 at 12:37 pm
Stan! My main man! You back!
Hope your vacation was good.
As for the trust, I don’t trust most of everybody in real life, I sure as heck don’t trust someone sitting on the other side of the world behind a computer for nothing telling me they won’t spam me ever. I guess you need to take their claims with a pinch of salt and realize that their are actual humans writing that nonsense.
August 21st, 2007 at 12:42 pm
@Ali: thanks, yeah, I’m back, a full month vacation is enough (:. The thing about web 2.0 and trust is that a lot of web 2.0 concepts and ideas are based on this trust and if it vanishes it won’t be the same.
August 24th, 2007 at 8:32 am
I always wanted to run this experiment myself but never got around to doing it. Thanks for your feedback. I guess when these web2.0 companies are offered money for their emails, they really re-think their promise : )
BTW, it is kinda ironic that you require an email address to post on this entry (and that there is a message stating “will not be published”) - should i belive you ? : )
September 4th, 2007 at 4:28 pm
[…] Stan Schroeder over at Frantic Industries notes his level of trust in web 2.0 sites. Not a good sign. Especially since I feel the same and the fact that despite the whole ideal behind web 2.0 is to share information, I do not like the fact that marketers (yes, I know I am one) have access to so much information. It does not bode well with me despite the huge embrace of web 2.0 from businesses. […]
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