Names Database - Privacy Risk

Privacy Risk

Before entering data one should be aware of the privacy risk: "You grant Opobox a non-exclusive, worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, transferable, royalty-free right to (a) use, copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, modify, translate and reformat Your Information in any media now known or not currently known..."

The data collection policies of Names Database allow the data to be used for spamming. There is also some concern about the posting of the personal information of children, though the site forbids such actions.

When entering other peoples information such as their email address, you then become personally liable for the use of that information and you have most likely not asked permission to use said information in such a way. To avoid problems, always have written permission from those people whose email addresses you are submitting. It may be a paid service, but on the site there is no information to confirm payment and the service provider supplies no site contact that may remedy any disputed payment.

Apart from privacy risks, confidence tricksters are now also using the Names Database in an attempt to achieve their obscure goals. Any new e-mail address can actually afford a fraudster any identity on the database. By registering e-mail addresses at any of the free e-mail facilities such as Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, etc., they create duplicate identities or identities that closely resemble actual people on the database. Unsuspecting users trying to reconnect with old friends or schoolmates can thereby actually contact a fraudster, thinking they are sending a message to a known person. The confidence trickster then tries to solicit further private information, and is known to use 419 Nigerian Letter or Advance-fee fraud methods to further entrap their victims.