[walpurg]

Originally Posted by ReuvenNY

I think this issue was exhausted by now. Let's go on with our lives... Unless something new or important is added, I will consider locking this thread.

Since I think this is a larger, conceptual issue that's not limited to @ferrety's personal grievances, I don't think it has been exhausted. You're the mod, of course, but I think locking now would be premature.

Originally Posted by Grhm

I've had complaints about Fastmail in the past, and I'm under no illusions about the nature of the company, but... for pity's sake, Mr Ferretty!
Bron has admitted that they made a mistake, he's apologised profusely and repeatedly, he's said they've learned from the mistake and it won't happen again, and he's outlined an entirely satisfactory solution (change your username) which means their mistake will yield no conceivable long-term harm to you.
He's even offered a refund, although I don't see why he should.
You've now milked this for all it's worth, and more.
Time to stop acting the drama queen.

I for one appreciate the fact that @ferrety has brought all of this to our attention. I see no "milking" here (so far). As far as I can tell (even upon rereading the posts), you're incorrect about Bron admitting they made a mistake, at least on the point that people's addresses were given to a third party without asking for consent.

Originally Posted by brong

Yep, we had the meeting. The result is that we won't be using the "willing to receive newsletters" checkbox as a way to select people to send questionnaires in future.

I didn't realize the main issue here revolved around whether it was OK send a questionnaire to people willing to receive newsletters...

We will still use third parties as appropriate for our needs.

No one has suggested you shouldn't use third parties. For example, I don't think anyone here has objections to you using a hosting provider to run your servers. Giving out people's addresses (especially to a data collection company), however, tends to fall outside what many people consider "appropriate" without you asking their permission first. It's simply not something people would know to reasonably expect.

This thread made some suggestions for other ways we could have approached this, which are fine. They would have all involved some additional work which wasn't considered warranted by the people making the decisions. Based on your feedback, we will take a different approach next time.

They almost certainly wouldn't have been anywhere as complex or resource intensive to implement as "building a survey tool inhouse", which you previously suggested was the alternative.

It's difficult to assess the merits of an equivocative "different approach", since it remains unclear whether or not you in fact believe that giving out your customers' addresses without their consent is something you have every right to do. If that's the case, a future rehash of all this seems highly likely. (Except that the EU's GDPR will be in effect by then, and you may or may not get by with just forum discussions. I think we all know there are some rather persistent folks around here.)