AOL's plans to integrate Switchboard's directory services - which include a Caller-ID-like feature for email users - may plug only a single hole in a dike rife with privacy gaps, industry watchdogs said Friday.
A "knock-knock" feature allows Switchboard registrants to suppress their email addresses from public view. Users can look up people on Switchboard, but to obtain the email address, Switchboard must poll the registrant for permission.
In a sense, Switchboard becomes an intermediary. The querying user sends a message to Switchboard, which relays it on to the registrant. This message contains the email address of the querying user and a brief message. From this information, the registrant decides whether to reveal his email address to the inquiring party.
Privacy advocate Beth Givens applauds Switchboard's intent to give users a "peephole" for email, but she said the feature actually adds to the problem. "Now you get two junk mail messages," said Givens, director of the Privacy Rights Clearing House. "Besides, you have only one of many directory services offering this feature."
The real issue, says Givens, is how these services build their databases in the first place. Switchboard said it uses only public information databases such as telephone directories. Other services cull email addresses from Usenet and other bulletin board postings, said Givens.
The problem for email users is not unlike the tangled web of mailing lists generated by direct marketers. The solution would be to bring about a system-wide "suppression list" that all directory services would maintain and respect - something Switchboard is going to try pushing, said spokeswoman Martha Collins, noting the service's clout of over 400,000 users and sign-ups moving at a clip of 15,000 per week.
But Givens is skeptical that even a voluntary system among Internet directories would work. She cites the failings of the Direct Marketing Association as an example. It's a volunteer organization and its suppression list has a shelf life of five years. And if a person buys something through mail order, then all bets are off and the person's address is back in circulation, said Givens.
"This system is just not effective because it's all voluntary," she said.
