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A Tale of Two Websites
2005-11-25 12:40 in /life
A coworker recently mentioned two new websites for managing wishlists: Wish Central and MasterWish. Neither site made it obvious how easy they were to use, or whether they could import an existing Amazon wishlist, so I figured I’d try them both. Here there were clear differences.
This is the Wish Central registration page:
Note that they request all sorts of personal information and it is all required. Well, that disturbed me enough to actually go read the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service. They say things like:
We may release Personally Identifiable information when we believe that such release is reasonably necessary to enforce or apply our Terms and Conditions or to protect the rights, property, and safety of WISHCENTRAL.COM, our users, or others.
While this Privacy Statement expresses WISHCENTRAL.COM's standards for maintenance of private data, WISHCENTRAL.COM is not in a position to guarantee that the standards will always be met. There may be factors beyond our control that may result in disclosure of data. As a consequence, WISHCENTRAL.COM disclaims any warranties or representations relating to maintenance or nondisclosure of private information.
WISHCENTRAL.COM reserves the right to update this privacy policy at any time without prior notice. Your use of the WISHCENTRAL.COM web site subsequent to any Privacy Policy changes confirms your agreement to be bound by the modified privacy policy. Therefore we encourage you to review this Privacy Policy whenever you use the WISHCENTRAL.COM Web site.
If required by WISHCENTRAL.COM, each user must provide true, accurate, current and complete information on the Service's registration form and maintain and promptly update the Registration Data as necessary. If we have reasonable grounds to suspect that any user's information is untrue, inaccurate, not current or incomplete, we may suspend or terminate that user's account and prohibit any and all current or future use of the Services.
To summarize, they require you to give up all your personal info, and always keep it updated; they will release your personal info pretty much whenever they want to; not only will they not compensate you for damages if they get hacked, but even if they deliberately violate their policies they disclaim any liability; and they will change the rules whenever they feel like it, without telling you.
In contrast, the MasterWish registration page looks like this:
Their privacy policy says
We will never rent, sell or share your email address, mailing address, phone number, or any other personal information.
So, guess which site I’m using?
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