It absolutely aggravates me to no end when I attempt to explore a new service… only to find that I’ve been had.

The service Quechup (I’m not going to serve them further by providing a link to their site) has spammed my email address book without my permission. I explored their site after receiving an “invite” from C.C. Chapman. C.C. and I are connected via many other sites… I assumed this was something to also investigate.

When I visit a new site like this I spend a great deal of time exploring their FAQ links, their terms of service, and their features. I only invite people that I think would like to connect using such a service and I’m very selective.

Quechup provided me the option to look at my Gmail address book to see if there were any other people I know already connected. I could then invite them to link up to my account. Little did I know that while looking at these (few) connections that they would be sending messages “on my behalf” to my entire list.

This is tragic. There are people in this list that I would never bother with socnet sites. There are many that have no idea — or no interest — in participating in these sites. Yet, EVERY address that I have in my book — and thanks to Gmail efficiencies every address to which I’ve ever sent an email — was sent an invite.

If you are one of the MANY that received this spam… I most sincerely apologize. I have removed my account with Quechup and have vowed to NEVER use their service again. I don’t care if they become the full blown replacement for such trend-setters as MySpace or Facebook.