To be honest, the last thing we need is yet another social networking site, whether or not its made by Indians for Indians. Orkut and Facebook are pretty much where it's at, and that isn't going to change for a LONG time. But that's not why I want to boycott Yaari. I want you to say no to this site because it's using a sneaky trick to get more users.
I got an email from a very good old friend of mine (whom I've added on Orkut already), inviting me to join Yaari. I thought he must have liked something out there on the site and that's why he's invited me, right? Wrong.
When I clicked on the link to sign up, a very strange message popped up next to the email field which said "You must use a Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail address."
This raised my eyebrow because I've never come across any site that has asked for this before. In fact, back in the days, there were sites that refused to sign you up if you used a free email service. I was wondering why they'd do something like this. On the next page, it was evident.
The next page was asking for my Gmail password so they can find and "match me up with my friends." This is pretty common these days - they take your password, see who's on the site, and sneakily send an email to everyone in your address book telling them that you've invited them. I usually skip this step, but this is where Yaari.com pissed me off. They had no "skip this step" link or button anywhere. I tried entering a rubbish password to see if they'd let me skip that step in the next page, but no. There's no way to register on this site unless you give out your Yahoo/Hotmail/Gmail password. To the junta, entering the password seems to be the only way to proceed, so that's what they do. And everyone gets spammed. Just like I did.
Fuck off, Yaari. I don't care if you're an Indian bunch - what you're doing here is unethical and you're only tarnishing the image of Indians by doing it. Aisi kaisi yaari?
If you're convinced with whatever I've said in here, please tell all your friends to stay away from Yaari.com and report all their invitation emails as spam. As a pre-emptive measure, add bounce@yaari.com to your block lists or filters. Be Indian and stay away from sneaky Indians.
Here's a short URL to this page that you can use to send to your friends: http://tinyurl.com/2xyyke
P.S.: I'm not the only one irked by Yaari's tricks. Blogger Shushubh also posted about this on his blog, calling it an online scam. I agree with him.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Say "NO" to Yaari.com
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30 comments:
haha yeah i kn ab this... there is one more website which does shit like this... like no escape !
Blogger should create some better way for comments..
Anyways..
The moment Yaari.com asked me for my password.. I decided to get aloof from it..
I do not like peole who wanna invade my things without me allowing them.. !
Way to go..you sure are taking their case badly. Good thing you posted this online.
i guess they are doing this shit to get more members. their alexa rank (50,687)indicates they don hv much traffic. normally all "networking" websites do this. even tagged.com (which is way ahead) do similar things.
in the meantime i m wondering if the press publicity of yaari was paid for. cause i don think ne media house could be interested in promoting such sites (makin this kinda site is very easy).
Yaari blows. Their blog is down, I'm thinking about starting a site:
yaariblows.com, anyone in?
Xuqa (iventster) did the same. Just makes Indian start-ups look like shit.
Vivek also had a great article about it.
http://startupsquad.com/2007/07/30/yaaricom-if-nothing-works-spam-your-way-to-social-networking-stardom/
I figured Stanford would have taught them some business ethics.
-spamyaari
Yaari blog is up...feel free to vent.
I have already contacted gmail, yahoo and hotmail about this abuse. May be we can get yaari.com black listed.
Her name is Prerna Gupta and she's in Atlanta, GA. She graduated from Stanford 2004. I facebooked her and told her that she's a jerk and should think twice before pulling a stunt like that. Her email is also Prerna@yaari.com
Enjoy!
Totally outrageous. See another entry at: http://blogs.sun.com/arungupta/entry/boycott_yaari_com_spam_2
I really liked your image and used it in my blog with due credits.
Also, if you have noticed, this is a brainless lift of hotornot.com.
I have emailed them about this. So, apart from stealing ideas, they are stealing gmail/yahoo/hotmail IDs as well. I guess my kid wont go to Stanford afterall.
Aah, see how stupid this Prerna Gupta was (and is). She didnot know that Gmail when it arrived, was an invite only service. I remember on the first day when Google released Gmail, I read it in a local Gujarati newspaper In Ahmedabad. This is what you learn in Stanford.
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/talkback/0,1000001161,39152777-30000000c-20047728o,00.htm
Well... I received a Yaari invitation from my Mum, that made me a bit surprised,and when I checked out the page "For Indian Youth", I thought "That's really weird". Why would my Mum send me an invitation to an Indian network?! So I checked it out on Google, and found your blog. I marked the invitation as Spam immediatly. Thanks for the warning!
Thanks for your tip on yaari.com.
Soon afetr joining yaari, two people whom i dont know from adam, got an invite to join yaari from my id. Of course i reported abuse.Stupid ole me thought this was a normal site to make new friends..but have been getting some weird mails.
Sangitha
yes, you're right.....yaari isn't fair.
Although no one ever bothers to ever check the privacy statement on these sites, it actually is extremely important.
Look at the following lines from yaari.com's privacy statement:
"The Add Friends feature is an easy way for Yaari users to invite friends through email. The email address(es) that you supply to use this service will only be used to send invitations to connect with you on Yaari. By registering for the Yaari website, and by giving Yaari member's email address and password, a member agrees to the Terms of Service and consents to allow Yaari to automatically send an email from the member to member's contacts, encouraging member's contacts to register for the Yaari website. Invitation emails will be sent on member's behalf, with the 'from' address set as member's email address. Yaari will never store member's email password."
I have never seen anything like this before. One must be complete idiot to give his email password to anyone. Don't you realize that you give your email ID to someone? All your letters can be easily read by anyone! I wonder how stupid someone shoud be to do this, i can't even imagine that level of stupidity...
yeah! nice way to inrcease the traffic ranking , now it is about 12,034(alexa traffic ranking), good showwoman prerna, u know prerna means "inspiration", ha ha ha, inspired cheater
Thank you for such a post as I was intending one to start!!! Another one is where people come and comment on your blog saying look here or click here and that's a bug again!!!!
Hope we all together can pull and get rid of such spams.
Cheers
wel to be honest i got an ipod shuffle from yaari bt tht was time when it was about to launch.. :p
bt after this new registration process came i also dnt go there... :)
Hello,
I recently received an invitation to join Yaari.com. I made a terrible mistake, which was joining that network with my most used Gmail account. Upon signup I provided my Gmail password.
Guess what: ALL my contacts received an invitation to join Yaari.com.
I wasn't even asked wheter I agreed to submit such silly invitation to ALL my contacts.
I received phone calls and emails from customers, family, friends asking whether they should accept this invitation.
Believe me, being an IT professional, I felt _really_ stupid having provided the credentials of my most widely used email account to such a dishonest, unethical and irresponsible company: YAARI.COM.
At least I will spread the mouth to alert people not to join such network.
Trust me: STAY AWAY FROM YAARI.COM, they exercise unethical Spam 2.0
I recently received an email invitation for Yaari, and because I had never heard of it before, I decided to do some research first. After reading your blog, I can tell that Yaari is bad news. Thanks for the help!
Everyone,
Are you all going to complain or are you going to DO SOMETHING?
Yaari's practices are not just unethical they are ILLEGAL.
They contravene the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act.
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.shtm
1) Go to the FTC page http://www.ftc.gov/spam/
2) Click on "File a Complaint" (on the left column).
It's a bit slow so be patient.
3) Click on "FTC Complaint Assistant" (On the right)
4) Is your complaint concerning identity theft - NO (hit next)
5) Dissatisfaction with other Business Practices (hit next)
6) Select "Internet" and "Other Internet Practices" (hit next)
7) I have a complaint about my options (or lack of) for protecthing my privacy online. (you can also select option 1 if you have children in your email list). (hit next).
8) Do you know the name of the company (Yes) (hit next)
For the company details enter www.yaari.com. You can use Prerna@yaari.com for the email. (Just put zero dollars).
For Step 5, I put the following in the additional info
"This company is a social networking site. They contacted me by sending an invitation that impersonated the email identity of someone known to me. After signing up on their site http://www.yaari.com I found out that they take all of the addresses from my email address book and send invitation emails to each contact that claim to be from me. I believe that this practice contravenes the U.S. CAN-SPAM Act."
-- Please don't just grumble. Make a difference: File a complaint with the FTC.
Tim
Another sucker here!:(
Years have passed since last time I've been tricked into something like this. Makes me even more angry.
Hate when someone decides something for me, and gives me no choice!
Advice came a bit late ...
I received an invitation from an old friend and I enrolled myself also. Yaari sucks!!! The main problem was that my wife, my managers, ... were also in my contact list ;-)
I had some explaining to do.
I was also gullible enough to fall for this. If you want to give them a piece of your mind, you can email the two founders at:
prerna@yaari.com
parag@yaari.com
In addition, Parag Chordia is a professor at Georgia Tech (I wonder how they feel about his side job?) and you can email him at his Georgia Tech address:
ppc@gatech.edu
parag.chordia@coa.gatech.edu
His home page is paragchordia.com
Please sign the class action lawsuit:
http://www.liamscanlan.com/yaariclassaction/
The same happened with me and I was quite annoyed. This website copied all my contacts and started sending them invites last week without my permission. Even after a week of de-activating my account, all my contacts are sent repeated reminders to join.
If this happens, please file a complaint at :
1. https://www.ftccomplaintassistant.gov/
2. Class action lawsuit:
http://www.liamscanlan.com/yaariclassaction/
3. Send a mail at abuse@yaari.com,prerna@yaari.com
parag@yaari.com (expect no reply)
It's a cheap way to lure customers, I get quite a few like these & disgust at the person who signed up at that particular website that eventually led me to receiving the email but then again they are dumb idiots & not Aalaap. :)
Kya yaari nibhai! ROFL!
I am happy I didn't join Yaari when I got an invite recently. I am giving this a thumbs up on SU to spread the message.
Sad... Even if it might be included in the "Terms" and "Privacy" blah blah.. of the website, sending our emails to contacts without mentioning it on that very page, is cheap... Then again, what should one expect from a site named "Yaari.com"?!
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