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Comment by _bxg1 | Hacker News Reader

Oh dang. So this whole thing is just a big data grab. Even if they aren't going to make fraudulent charges, that's a clear ulterior motive.

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not at all! We explicity ask if you want to opt in to future communications on our form - we are NOT using them to communicate with users if they do not opt in.

Then give the user the letter up front instead of hiding it in small text. This site has NO written all over it!

sorry you feel that way? We did put a fair amount of effort (and are spending our own dollars to mail the letters) so I don't think we are doing anything too unreasonable

So if I was to opt-out of communications does that mean you'll never upload my email address to Facebook or Google for advertising in the future?

Probably want to make the privacy policy more explicit and restrictive then.

It's entirely possible you have pure intentions, but I know nothing about (and therefore have no implicit trust in) your organization, so it would be a huge leap of faith for me to even consider putting this amount and degree of personal information into a random website.

The fact that your privacy policy's fine print allows you to use the information for something other than the express purpose at hand seriously undermines that, even if you have no actual intentions of doing anything shady.

I think it's pretty clear that HMBradly/RADvocate is trying to get email addresses through this campaign.

Personally, I'm very much okay with the exchange in this case, particularly given the cost of mailing physical letters.

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