Review: Tuenti's sign-up practice requires analysis

I had been hesitant to sign up for Tuenti for some time because their subscription practice seemed little strange to me. I was not sure I could choose who Tuenti would contact on my behalf to request an invitation to join. However, reading the small print on the sign-up page assured me that I had nothing to worry about.

Yet today, my concern was confirmed. I was quite surprised (and angered) to learn that Tuenti will be contacting people from my address book on my behalf without my permission. And I am definitely not okay with this practice.

There is a huge difference between allowing me to exclude contacts from their initial search and giving me the option to choose who Tuenti actually contacts once they've found out which of my contacts has an account.

www.tuenti.com

After reading the instructions, I realized that Tuenti would search my Gmail address list and look for anyone with a Tuenti account and then tell me if anyone I know has an account. 

I was assured I would then be allowed to choose who to contact. Not so.

Here is the process as Tuenti describes it, copied directly from the website:

Get a Tuenti account

Tuenti is an invitation-only social platform. In order to join Tuenti, you must be invited by someone who already has a Tuenti account. To find out if any of your friends have a Tuenti account and request an invitation from them, you can follow these simple steps:

1. Import your address book from Gmail or Yahoo by clicking on the button below
2. We’ll look to see if any of your contacts have a Tuenti account
3. If we find any matches, we’ll tell those users that you want a Tuenti invitation. If they choose to send you one, you’ll be able to create your own Tuenti account!

The fine print on the next step says:

We do not save your login information or send out invites to any of your contacts without your permission.

They gave me the choice to remove any emails from the search, but after that step, once you give them your list of contacts, they say:

Confirmation

Your contacts have been imported correctly. If any of your contacts have a Tuenti account, we will inform them that you want an invitation! If they send you one, it will arrive at the email account you used to import your contacts.

That is NOT what I agreed to. I agreed to have the choice about who Tuenti contacts on my behalf.

Now I have no idea who is getting an email from me asking to join me to Tuenti. This list could include colleagues, professors, and people I don’t actually know but they were once on a mass email I received.

If Tuenti wants to increase its number of subscribers and improve upon its mostly tween/teen demographic, it needs to take a serious look at its subscription practice.  In the mobile world, contact is so important, and unwanted contacts should be avoided at all costs.

Update: 6 days later and still no invitations. Who received "my" request from Tuenti? I have no idea!