YouTrustIt?
I’ve been hearing more and more about a new service, YouSendIt. It bills itself as a simple way to send people files that are too large for email to handle — up to 1GB. You enter an email address, upload a file, and the recipient is given a link (active for seven days) to download the file.
I don’t think I’ve actually heard of anyone using it for its intended purpose, however; everyone seems to be using it as a temporary host for mp3s that they want to share with friends. They upload the file, get the link themselves, and then post it on their weblog or IM it to everyone who wants it, and voilá, a new kind of filesharing.
When I first heard about people using the service this way, my immediate thought was that they must be crazy to just trust that the service provider won’t rat out copyright-infringers to the RIAA. Before making any judgments, though, I checked their website. Right on the top of the page is a link titled “your privacy is guaranteed.” That sounded promising.
Clicking the link and reading their actual privacy policy, however, tells another story:
IP addresses are logged [...]
We collect the e-mail addresses of YouSendIt Delivery recipients and senders [...]
We may disclose your information if necessary [...] Disclosure may be required by law or if we receive legal process.
They claim to guarantee your privacy, and then blatantly state that they log almost every bit of information that they receive and will gladly give it up if the RIAA comes knocking with a subpoena. This is crap. It almost smells like a filesharing sting operation. While many people I know are gladly going about sharing files with this service, I’m wary of doing so, and I urge anyone else with concern for their privacy to avoid it as well.
September 15th, 2005 at 4:40 pm
Interesting… I use YSI a lot for moving my mp3’s from my home computer to my work computer since that’s one of the few ways I can get them there. So if they were tracking me, I’d look like one big-ass pirate. I knew that YSI was way too good to be true. I also now feel a little wary of the site.