I have heard that grouply.com is accused of identy theft. Please tell me more so I can protect my groups. thx

Question

I saw an email posted to one of the groups I'm in regarding Grouply and identity theft/spam email, etc. I looked through Yahoo groups help and can't find any "official" information from them. Does anyone know anything to help me? I'd like to let the groups I moderate know if there is a real problem. Thank you.

Answer 1

I agree with Crazy_Mo...  A number of the people who have been highly vocal have actually organised an open Yahoo Group specifically to work with Grouply staff to sort out any issues that have been raised.  Grouply are showing themselves as a responsible company and are working hard to tune Grouply to address those security needs, either with more information or with bug fixes and indeed new features.  If you know of anyone with concerns then I recommend you get your voice into this group for the good of the Y!G community.

Answer 2

Who accused Grouply of identity theft? I have seen many people say what Grouply COULD do with peoples passwords. I haven't heard of one person who actually had their accounts hijacked. I own many Yahoo groups and have had no more spam than usual and have received no emails from Yahoo warning me to stay away from Grouply as some people including a woman in my groups has tried to warn the whole group about. No one has changed my group setting or my email address. This is after about 10 days with Grouply. I use other websites such as Auctiva to list my eBay auctions and they could also do bad things to me but they don't. They are trying to make money not get sued. My opinion is that Grouply is not a bad thing.

Answer 3

many people are getting way out of control over this. I joined and checked it out. the invites that are sent is annoying but then any invite can be.  there is no identity theft.

don't base rumors on being truthful, check it out for yourself. grouply would prove very useful for freecycle members.

the only flaws of grouply is that if a member doesn't set some privacy settings, you're allowed to see all groups they belong to and their e-mail address. but those are personal preferences and I suppose for promoting groups, some might like that. also members can send invites to grouply.

posts from groups are not public and you can only read things that you're  group of.

other than that, grouply has some neat features and I wish yahoo would incorporate.

Answer 4

This is from the FAQ on the Grouply website:

Grouply is not a blog. Messages in Grouply are not “published” for all the world to see. Like Gmail, Grouply controls access to messages and ensures you can see only what you are supposed to. When you log into Gmail, you cannot see your friend’s inbox. Similarly, when you log into Grouply, you cannot see messages for groups you do not belong to. Grouply is simply delivering messages to you that you already have permission to read.

http://blog.grouply.com/protect#messages

Answer 5

IDENTIFY THEFT AT GROUPLY.COM

There is a message going out to different Yahoo Groups advertising

and suggesting that you join a new group called GROUPLY. This group

claims to help manage all your Yahoo groups and you will get a

summary, at the end of the day, telling you what is going on in all

your groups.

IF YOU JOIN THIS GROUP, they use your Yahoo ID and password to

post "mass mailings" (can be junk, can be p**n) and send them to

anyone, and since it's YOUR ID they are using, others will think it is

coming from you.

For instance, you could get an email CLAIMING that it came from

"amystica3" Yahoo group and it really is not from this group. I could

get an email, with this mass mailing, claiming it came from me, and it

would NOT have been from me.

Again, IF YOU HAVE JOINED THIS GROUP called "GROUPLY" IMMEDIATELY

leave Grouply. Then go into your account at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/mygroups and change your password. Some

groups have posted that this will help. Unsubbing from that group

won't make a difference (but I think you will want to then possibly

rejoin) but you DO NEED TO CHANGE YOUR YAHOO PASSWORD.

By joining this group you have also exposed all your groups, group

members and group leaders to hacking of their emails and group

information.

Because of this problem, some groups are removing all members with

a email grouply.com. This is the only way to protect all the members.

This is how Identity theft gets going. They now have your real

email, your yahoo emails, any emails listed in your yahoo group and

can mail as you in and out of the yahoo groups.

I hope you understand what is happening and will take precautions

to protect your Yahoo ID.

I have also heard that grouply.com sells your information once

they have it.

Leslie

Bizzy Searchin Mod

Answer 6

I have nothing new to add but to agree with both the previous answers. Since you are asking a question with an open mind, do take a look at some of the discussions on Grouply and see for yourself. You will probably find that it is a company offering a good set of tools for Yahoo! Groups moderators and users, and being a startup, has a few kinks like every other company.