posted on September 10, 2000 03:15:43 PM
As a buyer, I think Andale sucks. Soon eBarf will be trying to push it down everybody's throat.
When I get an Andale message, I ignore it. Instead I email the seller and ask for either the paypal e-mail address, or the mailing address for payment.
posted on September 10, 2000 03:18:52 PM
texmontana -
Andale's privacy policy, as currently worded, does NOT protect the CUSTOMER info, only the seller's ... which means that they are not legally bound to protect the cusomter data at all.
And the info they collect on buyers is pretty damned detailed. A goldmine for their marketeers if they ever decide they need cash, AND a sitting duck for any disgruntled employee who wants to make some money on the side selling data. A couple of floppy diskettes can carry thousands of dollars worth of customer info to be sold to the highest bidder.
posted on September 10, 2000 05:00:38 PM
Yike! What kind of personal information does Andale want? I have bid (for the first time) on an auction which uses Andale. Maybe I should go retract my bid? Keeping my address off of marketing lists is important to me.
Violetta
(Not known by this nickname anywhere but here.)
posted on September 10, 2000 05:08:56 PM
violeta - just name, address, phone number CC number (and they know what you bought, so thay can add that to your profile).
But over the course of several transactions, ESPECIALLY if they merge data with other sites, they could get quite an accurate profile of you.
posted on September 10, 2000 06:07:28 PM
Thanks, Abacaxi. That is what I DON'T want happening. I am going to re-read the terms of that auction and question the seller (if there's time before it ends). If I decide to keep my bid in, I may give them a mutated address so I can track whether I get junk mail from it. They will get no phone or CC number, though.
Violetta
(Not known by this nickname anywhere but here.)
posted on September 23, 2000 07:38:21 PM
I won't bid on Andale auctions because I will not submit my information to some third party. I am rather troubled to read sellers would still submit buyer's information to third parties even if the buyer avoided the third party website, though in this case, I don't blame the seller for not realizing the problem some buyers have with third parties.
I am troubled anew to realize that even if I avoid Andale and other noted third parties, my information might be handed to third parties I don't even know about, again by sellers who don't ask or don't realize why a buyer would object.
If every seller would carefully pick a third party that had very stringent rules on all information, buyer or seller's, or companies, on or offline, didn't have such a propensity to sell information to direct marketers.
I can't blame the sellers that honestly don't consider things like this before using a third party.
However... the original posting refers to a process that sounds very intentionally oriented towards getting warm or hot leads (known online auction buyers whose records could be partially profiled right out of eBay pages), which are better in direct marketers eyes' than cold calling -- though their fondness of either one is part of what makes me...
-- "Planely" grumpy anytime I find another possible way in which I'm being sold to direct marketers
----
What's being done in the name of direct marketing nowadays is crazy.
The above are all just my opinions, except where I cite facts as such.
Oh, I am not dc9a320 anywhere except AW. Any others are not me.
Is eBay is changing from a world bazaar into a bizarre world?
