This fortnight in Online Insights, we look at privacy on classifieds sites, piracy, social media, and ironing!!

carsales.com.au’s privacy policy

Privacy and Facebook has been in the news a lot (possibly because news corp owns MySpace, or is that being too cynical?) but I am concerned about privacy in relation to popular classified sites such as carsales.com.au. Here is why.

Yesterday I got an email from City Holden, completely out of the blue. This spam got up my nose more than usual for a few reasons:

• Firstly, I am NOT in the market for a car.
• Secondly, it was sent with a high priority notifier, which means it demanded attention that quite simply was not warranted. This is the equivalent of the little boy calling wolf.
• Thirdly, it was sent with an attachment, which is poor form for any mass mailing, let alone UNSOLICITED mailings. Adding salt to the wound, the email contained a message saying City Holden would not be responsible if the attachment, which I never asked for, contained a virus or damaged my computer.

What wonderfully warm communication, I think not. But this gets better. Continue reading →