So, I asked a friend today if she knew of any classics books clubs in town, as I am now too often coming across references to Ovid's Aeneid as well as having the wiggly sense that I am missing half the allusions in The Inferno because I have not read Virgil. It's quite something, to me, to realize I actually want to pursue this study, but anyway, the friend suggested I try goodreads.com, which I did, and then it asked me to set up a profile, which I did, and then it asked, do you want to see who on your yahoo! email list is already a member? And I clicked sure, and saw four people, and unclicked one who is a business acquaintence, and clicked, in order to be goodread "friends" with the other three, all well and good. And four minutes later, I get an email from a friend saying, she's pretty busy but maybe she'll look into it, and then another, and then another notice saying I am now friends with Luke Ford, and I realize, holy fucking crap, goodreads has sent an email to everyone on my email list, 168 people, some of whom I haven't emailed with in years, and editors at magazines with whom I have only the most professional of relationships, and people who, I imagine, are just going to be baffled to have me asking, "do we like the same books?" If any of you are reading this, my apologies, really. Also, has anyone else ever inadvertantly done this?
Postscript: Of my goodreads morification, my husband said, "Oh, it's okay. It's not as though you spammed them from ilovetobespanked.com." And of that, a friend wrote to say, "I like to be spanked! Thanks for that link!" Glad to be of service.
Update: My friend Jackie Danicki linked my problems with goodreads; below is a comment she received. Funny that he did not write to me:
Hi Jackie,
Hope this isn’t strange, but we saw your post and wanted to respond. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience you have experienced. We have tried to make our address book importers as clear as possible, and will use the feedback in your post to continue to do so. We are dedicated to creating a quality experience for our reading community, and we hope you don’t hold this against us (too much).
sincerely,
Otis
–
Founder
Goodreads.com
Oh well. It was nice to be remembered, even if it was an accident...
Posted by: Jim Treacher | September 30, 2007 at 06:31 PM
Jim, always know, whatever I send your way is intentional xx
Posted by: nancy | September 30, 2007 at 08:02 PM
Well, it was the nicest spam-ever. And I joined the site as well. And I studied the Classics and have translated most of the Aeneid from Latin... if you ever have any questions about dactylic hexameter or myth or history, I'd love to help/chat, if only to reawaken those parts of my brain. All best, Heather
Posted by: heather | October 01, 2007 at 12:10 PM
Okay, I bow to Heather: Aeneid, from Latin? Yes, I'd love to talk myth and history, and perhaps find some other folks in Portland who do. Which was my intent all along!
Posted by: nancy | October 01, 2007 at 01:50 PM
One of the reasons he may not have responded was that the title of your post did not contain the name of his site, and was not nasty. Just for future reference when blogging about asshole companies and the assholes who run them.
Posted by: Jackie Danicki | October 01, 2007 at 01:52 PM
'kay. Put me on the list. Maybe a Classics Kaffeeklatch at Ristretto? Vale, Heather
Posted by: heather | October 01, 2007 at 03:44 PM
I'm sure as hell not signing up at that Web site.
Posted by: Michael J. Totten | October 01, 2007 at 11:54 PM
I really like the idea of Good Reads. However, as one of the receivers of the Nancy email, I too almost had my email contact list Shanghaied (all 681 contacts) when I went to sign up. They are sneaky bastards.
Worse than I thought too. So last night I did a little experiment. I deleted my account with them and was specifically told on their site that they would delete all my personal information. Not true!
How do I know this? Well, I went to sign up again using a different e-mail address that I created specifically for Good Reads. There were no contacts in this e-mail address. Yet, when I signed up, just like magic Nancy was added as my "friend." So they lied and basically kept my IP Address to use for tracking, which in essence is keeping my personal information. Not cool.
So here's my conundrum. I really like the idea of Good Reads and would love to swap book ideas with Nancy and others, but I just can't support Good Reads itself with their current business practices.
Posted by: Lizzy Caston | October 02, 2007 at 02:46 PM
With Lizzy on this one as well. I've deleted my account--yikes to know that I'll never really disappear from their system though. And it's too bad, because it is such a good idea--but after reading everyone's cool-headed assessment of how completely creepy this business is--ecch. Note to self: do not respond with such alacrity to charming spam seemingly sent (though in fact accidental from hijacked email addr info)by writers/people whom you admire. Check it out first. Oiiiiiiii. Live. Learn. Boo and hiss to GoodReads, cheers to good reading.
Posted by: heather | October 03, 2007 at 12:12 PM
Here's the comment I just left on Jackie's blog:
I just got an e-mail from Lizzy, who I don’t think I actually know. Maybe she’s a friend of Nancy’s? (I see she commented above.) But the e-mail made it sound like I’m on Goodreads — I’m not, and I’m worried and upset that I just typed my e-mail address in there like I forgot my password, and had joined but had forgotten.
This is very sneaky and very creepy, since I’m not actually on there, and I resent the hell out of it.
Here’s the e-mail below. Lizzy, do I know you, and did you intentionally send this to me? Or did they hijack your address book and Nancy’s perhaps? (I deleted my actual personal e-mail address from the code below, and substituted in DELETED.)
hi amy,
Nice to see you on Goodreads. I’m interested to see what you’ve been reading lately.
http://www.goodreads.com/friend/i?e=DELETED@aol.com&i=LTM2MDY1MTY5ODE6MzEx &n=amy&utm_medium=email&utm_source=invite
- Lizzy
(Lizzy.caston@DELETED.com)
Posted by: Amy Alkon | July 05, 2008 at 09:43 PM
The creeps at Mamasource do something similar, the address book hijacking thing.
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2008/01/28/spam_grows_on_t.html
Everybody should boycott sites with such business practices. How embarrassing to have an e-mail go out to editors and business contacts -- and in my case, if they managed to rob me of my personal data, also to anthropologists and evolutionary psychologists around the world.
Let's hope that hasn't happened, because if it has, I may try to sue you, Otis, for damaging me professionally. I certainly hope others will consider it.
P.S. I knew the guy you were named for a little, the late Otis Chandler, and I'm shocked that this is your business model.
Posted by: Amy Alkon | July 05, 2008 at 09:55 PM