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FACEPARTY.com breaches privacy / scans for email then SPAMs


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paulb100's Avatar
Computer Specs
Senior Member with 871 posts.
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: UK
Experience: Advanced
29-Apr-2007, 05:32 PM #1
FACEPARTY.com breaches privacy / scans for email then SPAMs
I would like to inform users and perhaps people who are registered with www.faceparty.com that this site breaches privacy and upon registering then signing in they are in actual fact acting out a scan of users Temporary Internet Folders for information such as email addresses and other information that may be lying in your cookies and selling them to 3rd partys.

My sister registered at this website then one day i received an email from faceparty.com saying that my sister had invited me to join the site? I confronted my sister about this and she said she never sent any invite, then it turns out that all of her contacts had also received the invite even though she never sent anything, so I asked her if she downloaded anything from the site and again she said no, by now I am very curious as to how they have done this so I now sign up with faceparty and then go through the whole site looking for anything I could download that would do this and I couldn't find anything... then 1 week later all my contacts (over 50) received an email from faceparty saying I had invited them???

This of course was rubbish and i had to send out an email to all my contacts apologizing, I then went through the Terms and Conditions and there wasn't anything there about this but there was a link to a 'Privacy Statement' which said ...

Automated Collection of Other Information

“Some non-personal information may be collected automatically, such as the computer operating system and the type of browser software you are using, along with special codes that tell us which pages you have visited. Some information is stored in the form of a 'cookie', a small file which remains on your computer but which acts as a reminder about any preferences you have selected when visiting our sites. We only use 'cookies' to improve our service to you. We may occasionally allow this non-personal data to be used by third party content suppliers, to help us serve you with more relevant content.”

What they don't say is they “will retrieve email address's from Hotmail or Messenger cookies”

and they say that “they wont use this information without your full permission to do so” but without permission they go ahead and scan your Temporary Folders on windows for email addresses then email each and every one of your contacts with invites to the site...???? who's to say then they aren't in fact selling the tens of thousands of email addresses they must be getting from peoples computers who are then prone to SPAM from the companies they sell them too? The reason for this suspicion is the fact they cover themselves legally to do this and just about anything else in their privacy statement!

When my sister and me signed up (and I'm certain i can speak for most of the other members of faceparty) we weren't told about this and certainly don't want anybody snooping in our computers for email addresses to Spam our contacts?

This has to be a breach of privacy and has similarities to having Spyware on your PC, it seems the site is a type of interactive site which seems to have some sort of power to scan the Internet Folder Without having to download and install an Active-X control when you sign into faceparty.com, Ive emailed faceparty.com about this but they fail to reply...I'm not surprised..

I would like to know that the email addresses they have gathered from my machine will be deleted and not 'Sold' onto 3rd party's and why they do this without asking permission?

Regards

Paul Bartley
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Wiskycoo's Avatar
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Join Date: Jun 2002
29-Apr-2007, 07:49 PM #2
Wow... I had wondered about this... my friend signed up a week ago and all of us that were in his email list got an ivite without his permission...and to boot...he has full virus/spyware/adware/malware protection... so it makes you really wonder.
pyritechips's Avatar
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Location: Cowtown, against my will
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29-Apr-2007, 07:59 PM #3
Hello paulb100

Assuming that site is as bad as you say it is, thank yoiu for the warning. Also, I am thinking that maybe this thread would be more affective in the security forum?
Mulderator's Avatar
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29-Apr-2007, 08:28 PM #4
Quote:
Originally Posted by Wiskycoo
Wow... I had wondered about this... my friend signed up a week ago and all of us that were in his email list got an ivite without his permission...and to boot...he has full virus/spyware/adware/malware protection... so it makes you really wonder.
So did you sign up? What's the link to your page?

Wiskycoo's Avatar
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30-Apr-2007, 11:00 AM #5
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mulder
So did you sign up? What's the link to your page?

paulb100's Avatar
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30-Apr-2007, 03:45 PM #6
I Think NETLOG (a similiar site) may be up to the same tricks
my friend keep sending me invites but says he didnt...
is this a new trend of malware? or mal-practise?
Scanning for contact addresses on PC then SPAMing them?
and hiding the thier true intentions behind badly worded privacy statements!
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Ciberblade's Avatar
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01-May-2007, 09:07 AM #7
This information might be helpful....note the abuse report email
Quote:
OrgName: RIPE Network Coordination Centre
OrgID: RIPE
Address: P.O. Box 10096
City: Amsterdam
StateProv:
PostalCode: 1001EB
Country: NL

ReferralServer: whois://whois.ripe.net:43

NetRange: 212.0.0.0 - 212.255.255.255
CIDR: 212.0.0.0/8
NetName: RIPE-NCC-212
NetHandle: NET-212-0-0-0-1
Parent:
NetType: Allocated to RIPE NCC
NameServer: NS-PRI.RIPE.NET
NameServer: NS3.NIC.FR
NameServer: SUNIC.SUNET.SE
NameServer: NS-EXT.ISC.ORG
NameServer: SEC1.APNIC.NET
NameServer: SEC3.APNIC.NET
NameServer: TINNIE.ARIN.NET
Comment: These addresses have been further assigned to users in
Comment: the RIPE NCC region. Contact information can be found in
Comment: the RIPE database at http://www.ripe.net/whois
RegDate: 1997-11-14
Updated: 2005-08-03



inetnum: 212.72.51.16 - 212.72.51.31
netname: CIS_INTERNET
descr: CIS_INTERNET
country: GB
admin-c: LTHM
tech-c: LTHM
status: ASSIGNED PA
remarks: all abuse reports to abuse@level3.com
mnt-by: LEVEL3-MNT
mnt-lower: LEVEL3-MNT
source: RIPE # Filtered

role: LEVEL3 Hostmaster
address: Level (3) Communications
address: 100 Leman Street
address: London
address: E1 8EU
phone: +44-20-7864-4444
remarks: trouble: 24 Hour Call +44-08000-927-729
remarks: trouble: Abuse reports to abuse@eu.level3.net
admin-c: STUD1-RIPE
admin-c: DT16-RIPE
admin-c: MATT69-RIPE
admin-c: JA600-RIPE
admin-c: JT4883-RIPE
tech-c: LTEE
nic-hdl: LTHM
remarks: Peering issues to peering@eu.level3.net
mnt-by: LEVEL3-MNT
source: RIPE # Filtered
abuse-mailbox: abuse@eu.level3.net
clhcpa's Avatar
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01-May-2007, 09:25 AM #8
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ciberblade
This information might be helpful....note the abuse report email

Ok, I have no idea what that means. Splain please.
Ciberblade's Avatar
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01-May-2007, 09:40 AM #9
Quote:
Originally Posted by clhcpa
Ok, I have no idea what that means. Splain please.
That you should be able to report abuses to abuse@eu.level3.net -- not sure what type of resolution might be obtained...but it's a place to start
clhcpa's Avatar
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01-May-2007, 09:47 AM #10
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ciberblade
That you should be able to report abuses to abuse@eu.level3.net -- not sure what type of resolution might be obtained...but it's a place to start
Ok, thank you. I'm basically a "newborn" when it comes to experience with this sort of thing. Guess I need to spend more time reading in the technical threads.
Wiskycoo's Avatar
Senior Member with 725 posts.
 
Join Date: Jun 2002
01-May-2007, 06:30 PM #11
I got another spam mail for that poopyface .com site.... so and so would like to invite you to poopyface spam site just click here for blah blah blah, bite me.

Yes, I think it' time to report... thansk for the links Ciberblade
Faceparty.com's Avatar
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Join Date: May 2008
15-May-2008, 05:13 AM #12
At the point of registration on Faceparty members are asked if they would like to invite their friends by entering their email address and password, then on their request we retrieve any email address from their hotmail or Gmail to send the invite email at the member's request. We do not make email addresses compulsory and so any invite email that you have received is at the request of a member who has joined that you know. I.e. The topic creator's friend registered a Faceparty profile and then requested that we send the invite email.

Faceparty does not spam, this is just utter nonsense
paulb100's Avatar
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15-May-2008, 06:37 AM #13
At time of creating this thread FACEPARTY did not ask me or my sister (or her friends) IF we wanted FACEPARTY to 'sign in' to our hotmail accounts and retrieve ALL email addresses and SPAM them with invites - do you think I would have allowed it if the option was there right in front of me? this option was NOT there at time of writing this and many others agree , FACEPARTY may have amended the page after seeing this thread OR the option was hidden away totally unobvious which legally removes FACEPARTY from any wrong doing.
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win2kpro's Avatar
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Experience: OEM Builder and Repair
15-May-2008, 07:05 AM #14
The fact is very few people when signing up for certain websites or services very seldom read the terms of service or privacy statement.

Many times in the TOS of privacy statement you give the host site permissions you did not realize simply by signing up. The lesson here is to READ the TOS and Privacy Statement before signing up for anything.
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Faceparty.com's Avatar
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15-May-2008, 07:08 AM #15
In responce to the last post made; nothing has been changed with regards to the invite page, it is as it was when it went live onto Faceparty.

Please find below a screen shot of the invite page. This clearly shows and states to members what the invite feature will do and gives an option to invite later if the member does not want to use the feature.
Attached Thumbnails
faceparty-com-breaches-privacy-scans-fpinvite.jpg  
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