You have been tagged....

Recently I received an email with the subject title that reads something like "Steve sent you a friend request on Tagged :)". Since it came from someone I know, I naturally took a look at the email content. What it basically says was someone has added you as a friend on Tagged.com and the email looked like this:

My first question was whether this is a spam mail sent out by some kind of spyware or adware or even spammers. So I contacted the person whom the email supposedly came from, to find out if he did send that email. The answer was no. What actually happened was that he received the same email from someone else he knows, and out of curiosity he signed up at the sign up screen that looks like this:

People are by nature curious about everything. To join Tagged, you will need to give your email address and the password to this email account! That would immediately throw up a red flag for me, where security is concerned. This is the first time I have come across a service that ask you for not only your email address but also your email account password. What actually takes place subsequently is Tagged will "harvest" your address book and email the same invitation to all email addresses you have. That explains how I got the invitation email in the first place, even though it wasn't intentionally sent by the supposed sender.

Now I really got curious to know what Tagged is all about. So I checked out the company, and this is how they describe themselves - Tagged.com is the premier social networking destination for the Millennial Generation and an ideal place for advertisers who are trying to reach the teen market. Tagged provides a fun, safe, and exciting environment for teens to showcase their personalities and talents, and to connect with friends and meet new ones. Tagged maintains this great environment by only allowing teenagers to register on the site.. So it is another social networking company targeting the teenagers.

Even though this may be a bona fide company in San Francisco, its business model is highly questionable, something that I would frown upon. And here are a list of reasons for that

• asking user for password to email account, in my book, is an inappropriate practice, dubious to say the least.
• sending email to addresses on my address book without my knowledge is anything but extremely inappropriate. Imagine people getting email supposedly coming from you which you didn't send and you having to explain it. And I mean every email addresses on your book, your clients, billing companies, former clients, casual acquaintances, your pastor, six grade teacher, etc!
• continue to spam emails to people who do not respond to the invitation in the first place, is plain spamming.
• In the invitation email, there are two buttons Yes and No. Clicking either one gives the same result - directing you to the Sign-up page. Such deceitful way of getting you to sign up.

If these are not reasons enough for you to avoid this social networking site, then do a Google search and that should convince you otherwise.