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!!!"

Originaly 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.