| The email explains several aspects of the health care overhaul plan that are implemented immediately. At this point, I want to state that I am not here to comment on the legislation, but what can easily be construed as taking advantage of a political victory to swoop up a bunch of personal information for the purposes of furthering political ideology.
CA Berkeley WV--Before this week, conservative leaning newspapers where generating third party emails in my inbox with the opportunity to click on a link and sign on to petitions that wanted to celebrate the defeat of the legislation by adding your name to a petition. They also wanted my email and location information.
The email then links to the President's social networking component, My.BarackObama.com and which asks that you sign up and give your name, email address and zip code as a condition of being added as a "co-signer" to the legislation. I clicked on the link.
Does anyone else think this is a little strange? Granted, I have been on the Organizing for America listserv for a while which means I resign myself to receive as many emails as they would like to send. However, I am not a member of the social networking component of the President's political campaign arm. Could this email be an attempt to consolidate members of OFA not otherwise affiliated with the social networking component into said campaign apparatus?
And the zip code. Why would a zip code (or email for that matter) be necessary in order for me to add my name as a "co-signer" of this historic legislation? I had to click on the link to get to this part.
Why not just be upfront and say, "Hey, we passed a pretty serious piece of legislation. It took a lot of heavy lifting and I would be honored if you would sign up on my campaign arm's social networking site." I probably would have done it then.
This approach seems disingenuous.
CA Berkeley WV--Maybe. Both sides use emails you get to the social networking site. You already offer some of this information just signing up for the email at the start. Both sides want to use the excitement of current political topic to get you to stay involved. There are days when I don't feel tricked, but like washing my eyes out with bleach after first reading the third party emails and then those Ralph Reed petitions
Online news content providers often ask for your zip code to customize the weather, for example. The Privacy policy for OFA is accessed by a link in the wide disclaimer banner on the bottom of the screen. Don't forget to find and read these every time. |
