More on Gazzag

I dug a bit deeper into the Gazzag thing after my last post. I created a dummy Gazzag account to see what's on the site, and here's what I observed:

1. The sign-up process does not need an invitation. Anyone can join in, without any restrictions. The sign-up process does not even have a CAPTCHA system to trap bots. So one can expect a larger number of bot-generated fake profiles on this site.
2. There are tools to automatically import contacts from orkut, yahoomail, Multiply, MSN Messenger, Outlook & Outlook Express. Imagine if you import your Outlook contacts at your workplace and your CEO receives a Gazzag invitation from you. That'd be fun, eh?
3. There are ads all over the place - a combination of graphics, Google-generated text-ads, and those irritating pop-ups (I deliberately used Internet Explorer to see what the majority Internet users' experience would be like). Of course, Firefox & adblock would be able to clean most of this in a jiffy.
4. Take a look at the profile information it asks - one of the fields is "Children in the future". Hmm..
5. One of the features that Gazzag is trying to market big-time is the live chat - one can chat with anyone who's logged on to the website. Either that's really useful, or really irritating.
6. Gazzag Dating - this is a site within Gazzag, name explains all.
7. I couldn't find a link where I could delete my account -- not true anymore. Please see update below.
   

On the whole, the site seems extremely nasty, and intrusive - definitely a lot more intrusive than orkut.

Now, a slightly tangential line of thought. The tool that allows one to import contacts from yahoomail & orkut requires one to enter the username and password of those sites. And a lot of my friends, including a few tech savvy ones, have done exactly that. My question is why??

Would you trust me with your yahoomail password? I think not, I hope not. Then why would one trust gazzag or any other site asking for your yahoomail password? There have been a whole range of sites that have been asking for yahoo & gmail passwords:

1. Meebo asks for your AIM, ICQ, Yahoo! Messenger, GTalk, Jabber and MSN Messenger passwords
2. Multiply asks for Hotmail, orkut, gmail, livejournal passwords (maybe a few more)
3. Plaxo asks for your gmail password.

I'm sure there are tons more that can be added to this list.

All in all, I am a bit flummoxed as to why one would want to share passwords on a new service, just for a little convenience. Sites like orkut & gmail allow one to export their contacts' list into a CSV file. One could use that to add contacts manually on gazzag or multiply or whatever service they want to use. Though this needs a bit more effort, I think this is a much safer approach to importing contacts.

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Update [26 Oct 2006]

After Venkat's comment, I dug some more if Gazzag accounts could be deleted. And yes, I did find these instructions:

1. Select the "Welcome" option in the main menu.
2. Select the "Account Settings" option in the submenu.
3. Select the "Terminate Account" option.

I found these instructions on http://www.gazzag.com/help/en_US/myaccount.jsp#10. Look for the question on how to delete one's profile.