EMail Parrot

The Dangers of Group Email

Bowling teams, extended families, school groups, community groups, and many more are part of our lives. We all belong to these groups and many of these groups primarily use email to communicate and coordinate. This is well and good until it isn’t.

When we sign up at a website there are terms of use for our personal information and legal and financial liabilities to these companies if they don’t handle your information correctly. These ad hoc email groups have no such protections. We are trusting all the other members of the group to act responsibly and protect our information. For many groups this trust is appropriate, but for some it is not.

We often don’t know the other members of these email groups well. Are there bad actors? Are they careless with their online credentials? Do they have a side gig in online marketing? Are they savvy in detecting phishing attacks? Once you give your information out to all the group members you are relying on all of them to act responsibly and knowledgeably.

If a member of the group wants to sell your information there are no requirements that they don’t. There are no clear laws regarding the sale of email addresses. A law prohibiting the sale of email addresses does not exist in the United States. If a member of your group decided to sell member addresses there is little that can be done even if you were to find out it happened.

Removing a member from an email group does not remove the information they have about other members. Once your information is in their email history or address book they will have it forever. The risk doesn’t stop even when they or you are no longer a member of the group.

If current or previous members of email groups you belong to change careers into online marketing you can expect that you will get information on their products. Sales people need to promote their products and you might have noticed that you now get ads from a local real estate company that someone you know is working for. I know I have and I didn’t sign up for these ads when I communicated to them via email.

Most people we know are not bad actors and would likely never misuse anyone’s email information. However, even in these cases there are risks. The people you email have your address, name, and all the emails you have exchanged. If they are hacked, the hackers now have your information. They can spam you or the group, launch phishing attacks, and/or sell your information to many other bad actors. Again this risk doesn’t end when you stop communicating, it lasts forever.

Email groups are putting their members at risk and don’t know that an alternative is available. EMail Parrot is the solution that email groups can use to protect member email addresses, reduce risk, and increase member participation.

EMail Parrot should be used by any group using personal email addresses to communicate. Social activity groups, community groups, parenting groups, school groups, and many others.

EMail Parrot hides the sender’s email address while also indicating which member sent the email with a nom de plume. It also protects members by not allowing non-members to access the group, removes dangerous attachments, and has strong membership controls.