[thelist] Online Directory Privacy Concerns

Chris Blessing webguy at mail.rit.edu
Thu Apr 25 14:38:01 CDT 2002


Jason-

Your safeguards far exceed those of most other online directories, so I'd
say you've pretty much got it all covered. :)  Having an email form as
opposed to the email itself is a good idea.

Some directories simply allow the user to select whether their email is
readily available or not on the site, which places that responsibility on
them instead of you.  I believe Univ. of Florida does that.

Chris Blessing
webguy at mail.rit.edu
http://www.330i.net

> I've built an online alumni directory for the University I work
> for, and we
> are wrestling with some privacy and security concerns. It is an opt-in
> directory, so we are covered on that end. But, we are worried about people
> getting a list of people for a snail-mail commercial mailing list.
>
> I have placed some safeguards in place... No email addresses are actually
> displayed, only a form to send an email to the person, so we are
> not really
> worried about people stealing email addresses or spamming. I also only
> display full contact information for a maximum of 5 people on a page. If
> the search returns more people, it is simply a name, city, class year and
> degree list.
>
> So, I was wondering if you all had any opinions on if these safeguards are
> adequate, or if you have ideas to improve privacy/security. Also, any
> suggestions from people with experience building online directories would
> be helpful!
>
> The full directory isn't ready to go yet, so I don't want to give out the
> URL. But, I have a email-only directory that recently went live and is
> almost identical if you want to check it out: http://www.mtf.mtu.edu/dir/
> I'd appreciate any feedback you have on that!
>




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