Quechup is SPAM

That is the subject of several e-mail I’ve received in the last few days. I can’t tell you anything about Quechup. In fact, I don’t even know how to pronounce it (is it Ketchup?)

The sequence of events is I get an e-mail inviting me to join. It’s someone I know and often trust. At least once it was sent to an listserv containing tens of thousands of people. A few hours later an e-mail comes announcing “Quechup is SPAM!!!”

Originally I thought it wasn’t SPAM. In the world of electronic mail, you get what we all consider e-mail (something you want or, at a minimum, from someone whom you want to permit to write to you) and SPAM (the extreme of no permission and no relationship). In between is what I call friendmail. Friendmail is where you send something from a website to a friend, such as an article from wsj.com.

Quechup seems to be committing such an abuse of friendmail as to be SPAM. While the e-mail is being sent on behalf of someone I know, they didn’t know that they were giving their address book information to Quechup. In its overzealous need to prove that it is a growing Web 2.0 start up, Quechup has turned its site into no more than a virus.

I don’t know if the site behind Quechup has any merit… and I have no plans on finding out.

About David Lewis

David Lewis is the CEO and founder of 77Blue which operates online shopping websites. Prior to that, he worked in business development at GoTo / Overture. David was a product manager and accountant in past lives. In 2006, David won Commission Junction’s Horizon Award for Innovation and was a finalist for Linkshare’s Golden Link Award. You can find David on Twitter @thedavidlewis.

Website: http://davidlew.is

Twitter: thedavidlewis