Plaxo Buildup

A few years ago, I registered for Plaxo (I’m positive it was pre 2003) – it seemed like an ideal service – help me keep my contacts insync and updated as long as my contacts opt to sign into it as well.
Well, that was until I started to realize some of the negative nuances – primarily, I wasn’t comfortable enough with Plaxo to be assured that my profile or my network wouldn’t be used in ways that I didn’t approve of. Secondly, I didn’t like the dynamics of Plaxo, in that it assumes that if someone says they are your acquaintance, then they will receive updates about you. For example, I know I have contacts which I inserted into my network for whom I receive updates for whenever they make changes, even though I am positive that those contacts have never verified the association – Plaxo now provides security and privacy controls, but either I didn’t set it up correctly, or the controls weren’t available previously. On the other hand, people can request updates, thus although I may not be a member, Plaxo is still collecting the relationship info. Well that was all pre-Web2.0 and now with all the social networks proliferating the web, relationships are becoming less and less private. So rather than being able to avoid some networks, it is becoming apparent, that maybe the best way to address them, is to take control of your account.

I definitely don’t think Plaxo is a leader in this space – it is simply an online address book with no incentive for me to keep my info up to date. Linked in for example is preferable for me, in that it from the outset focused directly on business contacts emphasizing the quality of your associations and that they should be limited to those who you would refer in a business setting. Plaxo on the contrary, made no distinction thus providing the referral and introduction tools become less appealing. …

Regardless though, I continue to receive emails from Plaxo about so-and-so updating their profile, or so-and-so asking for me to update my info, so I finally caved and have decided to try and reconnect so that I can take back control of my info. no luck though…

I’ve given up again. When, I log in, I get the following error:

so basically, in order for me to regain access to my account again, I have to install the Plaxo toolbar onto my my machine (my current one, is not the same one that I had when I first used Plaxo), and allow it to have access to my Outlook again. No way I want to do that, for the same reasons that I touched on above. So I guess I am stuck with being in the pseudo member but not a real member status with no control over my info…

UPDATE Dec 26, 2006
I was sent this URL http://www.plaxo.com/privacy/privacy_choices in regards to my privacy control issues for non-users. So it looks like Plaxo has addressed this too, now if I could just get myself out to be able to access my info, I’d be a bit happier about the control i’d get…