Sue Me
I don't use Classmates, for many reasons, but mostly because I am on Facebook (which is free) and I have heard many of the horror stories about Classmates auto-renewing subscriptions without permission. Anyway, I had to laugh at the terms of service at Classmates:
7) "You cannot link to our Website without our prior written consent."
You know, I really hate that. The world wide web is based on the principle of the hyperlinking of hypertext documents. If you don't want anyone to link to your site, get off the web! Go home now and leave the web to mature adults.
A no-linking policy sounds to me like a good method of restricting reviews and negative press. For instance, a list of dumb-ass websites would lose its punch if there were no links to the sites being reviewed. For example "Classmates sucks" has less of an impact than "Classmates sucks," right? You know I am right.
It's like when news sites reported that a nude photo of Vanessa Hudgens had surfaced on the web, but they didn't provide a link. That is only half the story. That, my friends, is irresponsible journalism. We all had to do the work finding the photo ourselves. News sites ought to be obligated to link to the thing they are talking about, be it Britney Spears without panties or Tom Cruise being all scientology-crazy, for example.
So, my point is that Classmates can sue me, or try to, but they'll never win.
P.S. I am loving this scheduled post feature. I wrote this on Tuesday and it will auto-magically get published at the designated time. That is awesome.
6 comments:
That is my #1 complaint about Classmates. Of course, the fact that other people have to be a member to see your info is annoying. Maybe I should put under my description, "Check me out at Facebook." If it doesn't block that, too, somehow.
I do think the designated post time is pretty cool, however, is it all that useful? For example, you said that you wrote this on Tuesday, so why not post it then? Why post it today. "Because you CAN" is a valid argument here. Not criticism-- just trying to understand.
P.S. How bass-ackwards is it for Classmates to not let you link TO them? Wouldn't that increase their traffic?
I suspect that the site is run by people who used mimeographed pamphlets to run for class president. In 1955. They probably mean well, they just don't get the whole interweb thingy.
I see your point. I try not to post more than once per day. I have to match expectations :-) Once per day or less is usually all I can manage.
So, I had already posted that day and had already written something for Wednesday (and scheduled it too), and I knew what I was going to post Thursday, so there you have it. Clear as mud, as my dad would say.
For some reason, I just like the scheduling thing.
I'm a free member of Classmates.com. A year ago, I paid so I could read the email of the one person who I wanted to be in touch with. I used a credit card my husband was going to cancel after the payment went through to pay for 3 months of Gold service on the site. I then chose the option to be billed and pay each time it was up for renewal. The renewal notice was due and a day or two before, I went to cancel. I had to go through hoops, about 3 or 4 layers of screens, but I did have my account revert back to free without having any more money taken from me, not that that credit card info would have helped them if they'd tried.
The people I've been looking to connect with aren't on Facebook. Unfortunately, my old school gang of baby boomers aren't Facebook folks. Classmates.com has the highest number of my former classmates I've seen on any online site so far.
Hmmm, so you can't use this post as an alibi or anything.
Damn, I guess you are right about that.
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