How Grouply Keeps You Safe

 

I heard that Grouply is a spammer, a phisher, an identity thief, and other bad things.
Is Grouply in violation of copyright laws or Yahoo’s Terms of Service?
Does Grouply claim copyright ownership of the messages that appear on Grouply?
How does Grouply protect the confidentiality of my group messages?
If Grouply is free, then how will you make money?
How does Grouply protect my privacy?
How does Grouply protect my Yahoo password?
Will Grouply post messages to my groups on my behalf without my permission?
I received an invitation to join Grouply. Where did that come from?
How can I find out more about Grouply without signing up?
What if I want to disconnect some or all of my groups from Grouply?
I am the owner of a group. I like Grouply, but I would like to prevent members from posting invitations to Grouply.
I do not want my group members to use Grouply to access a group that I own. What do I do?

 

I heard that Grouply is a spammer, a phisher, an identity thief, and other bad things.

With Grouply we are trying to address the issues that members and owners of email lists and online groups have been reporting for a long time. You can read more about what Grouply is and how it works here. We are here to help, and we want you to love Grouply!

Unfortunately, a number of false rumors have spread about Grouply on various Yahoo Groups and blogs. Here is an example of one negative posting along with our response to it. As you can see, much of what is written is pure speculation by people who have never tried Grouply. In fact, thousands of people are safely enjoying Grouply today. Here are some more facts about Grouply:

1. Grouply is not a spammer

People are typically referring to the invitations that enthusiastic Grouply users are sending to their groups. Grouply provides an invitation template, but most people do not change the text, so it looks the same to all groups. Grouply reminds users not to post Grouply invitations in groups that do not allow them. Grouply prevents invitations from being sent to a given group that has already been told about Grouply recently. In addition, group owners can prevent invitations from being sent to their groups altogether.

2. Grouply is not a phisher or an identity thief

You have the option to provide Grouply with your Yahoo username and password as part of the registration process in order to automatically setup your Grouply account. Your Yahoo password is carefully protected and is used only to discover your group list and retrieve your group messages. It is not used to access your Yahoo Mail or anything else. If you are not comfortable providing your Yahoo password, you can skip that step and set up your Grouply account manually. It’s completely up to you.

Like MySpace, Facebook, and Yahoo Groups, Grouply will make money through advertising. Grouply is an established company with highly regarded investors and advisors.

3. Grouply does not publish your group messages to a wider audience

Grouply is basically a “smart” email reader, specially designed for reading messages from online groups. Instead of forwarding group messages to your Gmail or Yahoo Mail account, group members send their messages to Grouply and read them there. Like any email application, Grouply maintains the privacy of your messages – members can’t read a group’s messages on Grouply unless they belong to the group.

4. Grouply maintains group member privacy

Grouply users have the option to share information about themselves in Grouply, but they are in complete control over who sees what. Grouply does not collect or expose any information about group members who are not Grouply users.

5. One group member using Grouply does not put your whole group at risk

If your group has a single member using Grouply, then all that means is that one person is reading their group messages on the Grouply website instead of in their email application. Grouply does not collect any additional information about your group when one member joins Grouply.

6. Grouply complies with Yahoo’s Terms of Service

Yahoo recently confirmed that it is not a TOS violation to provide your Yahoo password to a third-party site like Grouply. And very soon you will be able to use Grouply like any other email service without providing your Yahoo password!

7. Grouply does not claim copyright ownership to your messages on Grouply

The person who created the message holds the copyright to it. As stated in our Terms of Service, Grouply’s copyright is limited to the components of the website itself (e.g., logos and labels) and the communications services provided the Grouply.

We would really appreciate if you help spread the facts if you hear the rumors. If you have any additional questions or concerns, please contact us at support@grouply.com .

 

No. As explained on our Product page, Grouply is basically an enhanced email service like Gmail, America Online, and Yahoo Mail. Like these email services, Grouply is in compliance with copyright laws and Yahoo’s TOS. In addition, Yahoo recently confirmed that it is not a TOS violation to provide your Yahoo password to a third-party site like Grouply. And very soon you will be able to use Grouply like any other email service without providing your Yahoo password!

Grouply is not a blog. Messages in Grouply are not “published” for all the world to see. Like Gmail, Grouply controls access to messages and ensures you can see only what you are supposed to. When you log into Gmail, you cannot see your friend’s inbox. Similarly, when you log into Grouply, you cannot see messages for groups you do not belong to. Grouply is simply delivering messages to you that you already have permission to read.

 

Absolutely not! The person who created the message holds the copyright to it. As stated in our Terms of Service, Grouply’s copyright is limited to the components of the website itself (e.g., logos and labels) and the communications services provided the Grouply.

 

How does Grouply protect the confidentiality of my group messages?

As part of Grouply’s service to provide a better interface to your existing online groups, Grouply offers you the ability to post and read group messages on the Grouply website. Grouply, like Gmail and all email-reading systems, has a security mechanism to ensure that you get to see only the messages you are supposed to. You must be a member of a given group in order to see that group’s messages in Grouply. This restriction applies to Grouply employees as well. A Grouply employee cannot access a group’s messages unless she belongs to the group.

Grouply and Gmail differ slightly in how they control access to group messages. Whereas Gmail will let you see all the messages associated with all the groups that you ever belonged to, Grouply will let you see only messages for the groups that you currently belong to. To accomplish this, Grouply collects your list of groups from Yahoo each time you login to Grouply. In fact, the main reason we ask for your Yahoo username and password when you register is so that we can ensure that your group membership information in Grouply is current.

 

If Grouply is free, then how will you make money?

Grouply makes money through online advertising. It’s the exact same business model employed by sites like MySpace, Facebook, Gmail, and even Yahoo and Google Groups. As you read messages and interact with your online community on Grouply, we will project relevant and unobtrusive ads to you. For now we are focusing on building a strong and satisfied user base, so we haven’t yet made it a priority to incorporate ads on the Grouply site. Grouply will never spam users with email advertisements.

 

How does Grouply protect my privacy?

As with many social sites, Grouply gives you the option to enter and make available to others some personal information about yourself such as your name, contact information, and the list of groups you belong to. With Grouply’s advanced privacy controls, you decide who can access your profile page and what they see when they get there. Keep your list of groups and friends private if you like. Share your home address only with your friends and select groups. Share with your fellow group members the list of conversations you found interesting—or don’t. It’s all up to you. Grouply was recently certified by TRUSTe, an independent advocate of consumer internet privacy. For more information, please see our Privacy Policy.

 

How does Grouply protect my Yahoo password?

As of May 2008, you no longer need to provide your Yahoo password to use Grouply. Now when you register with Grouply, you choose between the Automatic and Manual setup options. The Manual setup option does not require a Yahoo password, but it will take you a few more minutes to configure your Yahoo Groups settings to use Grouply. Users who are comfortable with providing their Yahoo password to Grouply benefit from faster setup and can also take advantage of Grouply’s Web Connect feature.

Grouply understands the sensitivity of your passwords for other systems and handles them with great care. Your Yahoo password is used only to connect your Yahoo Groups to Grouply. Grouply does not use your password to access Yahoo Mail, Yahoo Finance, or any other Yahoo sites. Your Yahoo password is encrypted and can be read only by the Grouply application, not directly by a human.

There are many examples of popular websites and products that request sensitive information from you in order to provide you added value. For example:

  • You provide your Yahoo, Google, and AOL usernames and passwords to your mobile phone carrier so you can access all your emails from these services on your Blackberry;
  • You provide your Yahoo, Google, and AOL usernames and passwords to sites like Meebo so you can access all of your instant messaging (chat) accounts from one place;
  • Sites like Mint go further and ask for your bank account information to help you track your financial assets;
  • And of course, millions of people provide their credit card info online to make purchases every day.

All of this is part of growing trend for openness and information sharing among web applications to provide advanced applications and services to consumers. The most important action you can take as a consumer is to ensure that the company requesting your sensitive information has the proper safety and privacy mechanisms in place to avoid compromising your information. At Grouply, we do! Grouply was recently certified by TRUSTe, an independent advocate of consumer internet privacy.

 

Will Grouply post messages to my groups on my behalf without my permission?

Absolutely not! Grouply enables you to post a message to your group through Grouply using one of our convenient templates that are customized based on the type of message your are posting (e.g., event, classified ad, general discussion item). After you fill in the fields, Grouply composes a professional-looking message from the data you have entered and posts it to the group. Grouply also offers you the ability to invite your fellow group members to Grouply by posting a message to the group. All of these message postings, however, must be initiated by a Grouply user. As outlined in our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, Grouply would never post a message on your behalf without your permission.

 

I received an invitation to join Grouply. Where did that come from?

Any invitation to join Grouply would have come from an ethusiastic Grouply user who wants you to benefit from Grouply as they have! Like many internet sites, Grouply offers a mechanism for existing users to invite others to join. Grouply provides default “invitation text” that the user can modify if they want, but many users choose to stick with the default. This would explain why you may have seen multiple similar-looking invitations. If this is the case, then you have lots of friends who want you to try Grouply!

We want to stress that any invitations you receive asking you to try Grouply are initiated and sent by your friends or fellow group members, not by Grouply. As stated in our Privacy Policy and Terms of Service, Grouply would never send out a message on behalf of a user that the user did not initiate.

 

How can I find out more about Grouply without signing up?

Grouply offers a number of ways to find out more. You can take a tour or view one of our tutorials. You are also welcome to try Grouply using a test account. Here’s how:

  1. Select a Grouply ID (e.g., grouply3) and Password (e.g., 12345) from the Test Users table below.
  2. Go to http://www.grouply.com and enter the Grouply ID and Password you selected in the Member Login section.
  3. Clock Login.

Now you’re in Grouply, logged in as a test user! Click around and have fun. Please note that all the data is made up. There’s not much in there now, but we’ll enter more over time. You are free to post new messages and enter or change data yourself, but please keep it respectful and clean! Thanks!

Test Users

Grouply Test User ID Password
grouply1 12345
grouply2 12345
grouply3 12345
grouply4 12345
grouply5 12345

 

What if I want to disconnect some or all of my groups from Grouply?

With Grouply you can access all of your groups or just a few. You can select which groups you want to access via Grouply by going to Settings > Update Group Access.

To disconnect all your groups and delete your Grouply account and all your information in Grouply, including your Yahoo username and password, go to Settings > Discontinue Using Grouply. Grouply will reset your Yahoo Groups settings to their pre-Grouply state. To confirm this, or to review or update your settings in Yahoo Groups, go to your My Groups page in Yahoo Groups.

If you do choose to disconnect from Grouply, we would appreciate it if you would share some details about what you didn’t like about Grouply, as we’d like to take advantage of this opportunity to improve Grouply for our users. Please send feedback to feedback@grouply.com .

 

I am the owner of a group. I like Grouply, but I would like to prevent members from posting invitations to Grouply.

Grouply has a feature like “tell a friend” called “invite my group”. This feature enables a user to post a message to their group about Grouply. Only one such invitation can be posted to your group every 30 days. As the group owner, you have the ability to block such invitations altogether if you want. Here’s how:

  1. Go to http://www.grouply.com/owner_controls.php, type in your group name, and click Send Email.
  2. An email containing an Owner Authorization Code (OAC) is sent to your group’s owner address. (All of the owners and moderators of your group will receive this email, so you should let them know that you sent it!) Open this email and copy the OAC to your clipboard using Ctrl-C or the “copy” command.
  3. Return to the Owner Access Controls page. If the page does not display “Enter Owner Authorization Code for Grouply Access Controls”, then go to http://www.grouply.com/owner_controls.php?c=1 .
  4. Paste the Owner Authorization Code into the box and click Submit. You are taken to the “Set Grouply Access Controls for Your Group” page.
  5. In Step 2, select Invites Disabled and click Save. That’s it. The Invite My Group feature is disabled for your group.

 

I do not want my group members to use Grouply to access a group that I own. What do I do?

A group owner can block her group from being accessed through Grouply at any time. Here’s a link to the Grouply Owner Controls page that will enable you to block your group from Grouply: http://www.grouply.com/owner_controls.php .

You do not need to register with Grouply to use Grouply Owner Controls, and you do not need to submit any personal information. You can use Grouply Owner Controls whether or not your group is already in Grouply. The process to block a group is relatively straighforward and should take only about a minute to complete. Here are the steps:

  1. Go to http://www.grouply.com/owner_controls.php, type in your group name, and click Send Email.
  2. An email containing an Owner Authorization Code (OAC) is sent to your group’s owner address. (All of the owners and moderators of your group will receive this email, so you should let them know that you sent it!) Open this email and copy the OAC to your clipboard using Ctrl-C or the “copy” command.
  3. Return to the Owner Access Controls page. If the page does not display “Enter Owner Authorization Code for Grouply Access Controls”, then go to http://www.grouply.com/owner_controls.php?c=1 .
  4. Paste the Owner Authorization Code into the box and click Submit. You are taken to the “Set Grouply Access Controls for Your Group” page.
  5. In Step 1, select Disabled and click Save. That’s it. Your group is blocked.
  6. To verify that your changes were accepted, repeat step 3 above, and note that the button is set to Disabled.

After you block your group from Grouply, all current Grouply users will no longer be able to use Grouply to access this group, and they will receive an email to this effect. Group members who join Grouply in the future will not be able to start using Grouply for the group. Here is an example of what group members will see for a blocked group on the Update Group Access page in Grouply.

To enable access to a group you previously blocked, repeat steps 1 to 4 above, select Enable on the “Set Grouply Access Controls for Your Group” page and click Save.