Online Communities – the fun continues

This week I was signed up for an online ‘community’ without ever having registered for an account.

This Church Tech forum has a relatively large number of subscribers and a comparatively small number of active participants, like many online forums. But this week, in an effort that I can only assume was meant to artificially pad their numbers, they automatically signed up all 27,000 e-mail subscribers as forum members.

I received an e-mail titled “Your New Community Account at [site]” and which said that my new account has been created for me. It even included my new Username and Password, as well as an option to upgrade my membership immediately (if I have the cash and inclination to pay for bells and whistles in an online community).

I was horrified!

In my opinion it is both unethical and underhanded to sign people up for accounts that they have not requested. At best, it is SPAM. At worst, it is illegal. Mostly though, I perceive it as a violation of the conduct expected from a system administrator in an online forum.

If I would have wanted an account, I would have signed up for one.

What if banks began automatically opening accounts for anyone that had used their drive-through? What if supermarkets automatically signed you up for a rewards card program and required its use for access to the entire store?

Even more disconcerting, though, are the implications this has within the religious community… What if churches began automatically adding people to their membership roles without permission? What if we began sending them tithe notices? What if we also automatically registered them for events like pot-lucks (and told them what to bring when they came)?

You see my point? It’s a slippery slope and the slide away from good online ethics is fast and furious. Christians should be standing against the tide, not leading the charge.