Jump to content

Is This Genuine?


Recommended Posts

Has anyone else received one of these? And is it genuine? I'm asking due to the errors in the message.

 

"You are invited to participate in this brief 5 – 7 minute survey regarding your use and satisfaction with geocaching.com. All responses will remain confidential and used in accordance with Groundspeak’s privacy policy. View Privacy Policy

 

This survey link will be active until April 14th. We value your feedback and look forward to learning how we can better serve the entire geocaching community.

 

Thank you,

The Groundspeak Team "

 

I've no objections to filling out the survey if it's genuine only it appears to have been generated by another company.

 

Dave

Link to comment

ditto MarcB.

 

http://info.zoomerang.com/ looks like a genuine enough company, otherwise how did they get all our mail address's?

 

on I side note ... I do hope GC.com don't make too much of a habit of giving out our address, we've just changed it because of spam and I'd like this one to stay spam free ta very much!

 

EDIT

 

Just filled it in, most of it is what do you think about this and that in relation to caching with the usual market research questions about how much you earn, are you married, do you have kids etc etc

Q15 is an intersting question to ask ... Do you enjoy finding micro caches?

Edited by choccymandm
Link to comment

I have just come on to the forum as I too have had the invitation to take part in the survey and my suspicions were raised by its format - it may well be genuine but I am waiting to see if anyone I trust is sure of it. :lol:

 

I just got one...seems ok ???

Link to comment

research questions about how much you earn ....

 

I didn't go beyond the first page.

 

If they want to compile a list of highly personal data such as that, then they can whistle for it.

 

That kind and depth of information on a hundred thousand cachers in over a hundred countries is worth millions of dollars.

 

Somebody somewhere is either taking the pi$$ or is making a financial killing (or both).

Link to comment

I had one today and I answered it as I could not see anything wrong with it except the bit about income

which I did not answer.

I only answer what I think what they want to hear and I do tell a few porkies. (Education? Doctorate.) :lol:

 

The strange thing is I also received a survey from my broadband server as well today.

This was also compiled by the 'Boomerang' organisation.

Link to comment

We got one, I filed it in. Nothing really intrusive in the qustions - the how much is your family income question was in dollars so it don't matter which one I clicked as no one pays me in dollars!

 

Other than that I took the oportunity to point out they could improve the servers :lol:

 

Usuallly the reason for these sorts of surveys is to interest advertisers by showing the people who use the site.

 

Chris

Edited by Chris n Maria
Link to comment

Yes I recieve one too. I wondered about it as well... not sure if I'll take the survey yet or not.

 

Geocaching Survey Invite

Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2006 11:03:17 -0800

 

You are invited to participate in this brief 5 – 7 minute survey regarding your use and satisfaction with geocaching.com. All responses will remain confidential and used in accordance with Groundspeak’s privacy policy. View Privacy Policy

 

This survey link will be active until April 14th. We value your feedback and look forward to learning how we can better serve the entire geocaching community.

 

Thank you,

The Groundspeak Team

 

w.zoomerang.com/survey....

 

Edit: Apperently it really was send by grounspeak, see Raine's post.

Edited by welch
Link to comment

Well goodness me !..... it would have been soooooo much trouble to send an automated email to all the paying Groundspeak contributors telling them about this .............wouldn't it...

 

It will be interesting to see what comes out of it... suspect that saying other interests = pig sodomy and ferret breeding may bring some interesting emails ... :lol:

Link to comment

I'll repost this from the main forums since it was helpful (and yes it comes from us):

 

I'm wondering if they can tell who participated by the list of characters at the end of the address; mine ends in -JQL84KAYT

 

Although technically you could map the responses with a user, we went to great care to anonymize the way that emails are handled through Zoomerang. Zoomerang actually received fake emails that map to our mail server. We then map it to the correct emails and send them out from our own mail servers. Once we get the results from the survey we will delete the mapping which will completely anonymize the results (and make it so all the emails in Zoomerang's database bounce).

 

The reason why we use the tracking is to reduce the number of duplicate surveys that would skew the results. Only those that opted in to receive emails from us received the survey.

Link to comment

I echo the Wombles comment. It's genuine, the only question that's a bit intrusive is how much do you earn (which you can opt out of) and it's nice to be asked my opinion for once - For the record I DO like micros, and I think their servers need a stern talking to. One thing that made me chuckle is that some questions are labelled 'mandatory' - kind of pushy given you're helping Groundspeak's market research out of the kindness of your heart!

 

To sum up - bin it if you object to it. Do it if you don't. And if micro's get banned, don't blame me, I voted for them! :lol:

Link to comment

Sorry, I missed this UK contribution as I went straight to the main forum this being an interntional survey - my post read as follows:

 

I for one got part way through the survey then stopped. This might be a British attitude but there were too many manddatory personal questions I am just not prepared to answer. I am happy to be a premium member and pay my way for a service but this gives you no acces to my personal info'! I therefore think the survey is useless as too many will opt out to make the findings of any use.

 

Further, not enogh thought has been given to some Q's. EG Do you enjoy micro caches? I have no preference either way so tried skipping this one but it wouldn't let me.

 

Sorry Grundspeak, you had a chance to get valuable feedback but blew it in my opinion.

Link to comment

Well, I've filled it in... ;)

 

Can't see that there is too much to worry about, apart from a bit of spam, which I can either filter or even change my Hotmail address if it gets too bad.

 

The questions didn't seem too personal to me, and I even got to have a dig at Waymarking.com at the end. :(

 

I feel as a premium member I get a good service for less than $2 a month so if answering a few "General" questions will help make things better by either enabling Groundspeak to tailor the service to my needs and wants (bit sceptical about that one) or making money from my data then so be it....They are a business after all!

 

Cheers

Dave

Link to comment

Well, I just completed it with all my spyware tools on paraniod setting, seemed OK. Obviously to hit everyone, this is a survey commissioned by GC as someone said it seems to come direct from their mail server (and they make a fuss about protecting details). The reason it is directed to another domain, is probably that for a survey to be of any use the data must be collected by an 'independent' party; although as someone else pointed out the extra characters on the end of the url, could log your address to your responses.

 

The only questions I objected to were the income one (given my point above) and the postcode one, which you couldn't not enter and narrows me down to 4 houses.

 

All that said, anyone who thinks they have any form of anonimity on the interweb should really think again. (just google your name, or something else about you and be prepared to be surprised). For example if the moderators were to look at this post they would know who i work for and if I was at home they would know my real name - just from my ip address (don't think if your isp is 'dynamic' you're in the clear either) and from there find out whatever they want. I just take comfort from the fact that there are so many really 'strange' people out there, no-one is really going to want to take an interest in me ;)

Link to comment

I've just had one of those unsolicited spam(?) commercial mass emails too.

 

Q3 alerted my suspicions:

"*Have you ever been geocaching before?"

 

Before what? Before bagging 100+ caches?

 

How many other companies has GC.com given my private personal email address to for commercial purposes?

I know of several people who have registered but never ventured out to find the cache. I suspect that sort of question allows them to assess how many people who haven't ventured out are still interested.

 

research questions about how much you earn ....

 

I didn't go beyond the first page.

 

If they want to compile a list of highly personal data such as that, then they can whistle for it.

 

That kind and depth of information on a hundred thousand cachers in over a hundred countries is worth millions of dollars.

 

Somebody somewhere is either taking the pi$$ or is making a financial killing (or both).

You can opt out of answering this question, as I have.

 

Other than that I took the oportunity to point out they could improve the servers ;)

I done this too, as I supect many others will?

 

Must be SPAM, why the errors in the text ?

 

Not going to do anything until someone ( a moderator) can confirm if it's for real or not.

 

Hope this isn't the first of many caused by a compromise of security.

 

Appologies to Geocaching.com or Groundspeaj if I'm wrong :(

 

The post immediately above is by the owner of the site, and he has answered several other questions since on this thread. I think you can assume it is genuine.

 

I personally don't see any harm in getting this so called SPAM, if you think it is SPAM looks like you have to edit your personal controls, as YOU have allowed it.

Link to comment

I recieved this email on the 27th and filled it in and since then I cant seem to log any of my finds in. I keep being told the server is down or website doesnt exsist. My hubby at work has managed to log in ok and hes not done the servey.

I hope this is just a coinsidence. I didnt give them any personal stuff and certainly not income, Im not American. My computer is well protected for viruses etc.

 

Yorypudding.

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...