Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

P2P Contact Info Service From Napster Co-Founder

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the on-the-innernet dept.

scrm writes "Plaxo is an interesting new service from Sean Parker, co-founder of Napster. It's a P2P-based add-on to Outlook that confronts the old problem of keeping contact lists up-to-date. Mozilla mail support is on the cards, and yes, the company does 'take privacy very seriously'. Check the press here(1), here(2) and here(3). You can also access your contact list over the web."

3 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. errr.....right by domodude · · Score: 5, Funny

    Well, I guess I will have to get this now. What could be more seruce that a P2P service based in Outlook. Better yet, I could start using AOL and Windows 98 too! It will be good times.

  2. Privacy by bigbango · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If they really take privacy seriously, why do they act as "man-in-the-middle" of all transactions between their users? Who knows how many valid e-mail addresses they have collected. Their system has nothing to do with p2p-systems, it is in fact no more p2p-like than e-mail.

    Worst of all, Plaxo users upload their contact lists containing personal information about others. That is without their acknowledgement.

  3. Yawn by Jeffrey+Baker · · Score: 5, Informative

    Sounds horrible. I can already drag contacts out of my address book and into iChat, and drag a contact out of iChat into my address book. Furthermore I can mail vCards to and from whomever I wish. Lastly, I can sync addressbooks via SyncML with whomever, and for large organizations, there are directory services. So it seems this Plaxo widget adds basically nothing to my existing abilities.