Poster:       Carl Reimann <[log in to unmask]>
 
>Subject:      iaf.net - what's the beef?
 
The beef is that the addresses (with place & snailmail address of employer,
or at any rate of account) were gathered without consent or even
notification.
 
As I have just now pointed out to the gentleman from iaf.net who responded
to my request to have my entry deleted, the phone book analogy is faulty:
you voluntarily subscribe to the phone company's service, you *know* ahead
of time that this means you will end up in their directory, *and* you know
ahead of time that you can have your name and number unpublished or
unlisted before it even gets into the directory.
 
What IAF has done, however, is take addresses from postings -- probably:
I set myself conceal on every list that has this option, so it's less
likely they got my address from any sort of review; add place of employment
(or at least the snailmail of the service provider, which, for many of us,
 *is* our employer -- thus providing a specific physical address where
people we don't know and haven't met and perhaps don't *want* to meet can
find us (yes, I know, one can look this sort of thing up, too, but I don't
really like the idea of making it *easy* for a bloody-minded listmember
I've just forcibly unsubbed from my list for making an unbearable nuisance
of himself to be able to confront me on the issue face to face, thank you
all the same); and put all this in a publicly searchable database without
giving anyone the least idea that this has been done.
 
Even if the names@addresses are taken from reviews, what this means is that
the only way you can keep from this sort of public exposure (as it were;
I'm overstating slightly, but, then, I'm just the tiniest tad irritated
about this whole thing) is never to join a list and never to post to a
list, which seems to me a bit stifling.  Joining a list and/or posting does
NOT imply consent to be made part of someone's public database in the way
IAF has done.
 
>If they don't take your name out when you ask, that's bad. You can tell the
>phone co that you want an unlisted number.
 
One, yes, they have a remove address (send e-mail to [log in to unmask]); they
promise removal within 24 hours ... we'll see.  Two, you can tell the phone
company to unlist / unpublish you *before* you end up in their directory,
as I've said above, and you know ahead of time about the directory in the
first place.  With the phone company, it's open and aboveboard and
voluntary and you know about it.  With IAF, it comes as a complete
surprise, and you have to go to extra trouble to undo what they've done.
 
>offer more services than ever. It seems that when someone comes up with a nice
>new service that breaks with tradition, there is a minor uproar as a few
>people see progress rushing past them, but in the end it works, if it's a good
>service.)
 
I fully agree that it's a good service.  However, being part of that
service should be voluntary, not unwitting.  If I hadn't been on this list,
I'd possibly never have known about IAF and my inclusion in their db, and
that strikes me as not being *right*.
 
>I can't see whe privacy issue. If you're out there corresponding with scads of
>people, you can't imagine that you are "private" any more. And the Internet
 
Yes, but those people with whom you correspond can legitimately *ask* you
where you work.
 
>Carl
 
Mario Rups
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