Or whatever your friend’s name is. (Everybody knows a “Megan,” right?).

You’ll get an email (see below). Don’t listen to the email. Instead, email the person whose name is being invoked by ShoppyBag and be all, “Hey girl, what’s up with this ShoppyBag stuff?”

Above all, do not “unsubscribe” and do not “report this email.”

That is all.

Here’s some background from last year. Seems as if traffic at SB has been down since the beginning of 2011 but things are hotting up again. Not too long ago, I had an exchange with a reporter from a big newspaper Back East – he’s baffled as to how ShoppyBag makes money, like, what’s the scam? As am I. No matter, just ignore it and it will go away…

_______________

Ah yes, once again, my nemesis ShoppyBag shows up in the gMail. It might happen to you too someday, maybe one of your buds will sign up for this shopping-with-your-friends webthing in order to see a photo from one of her (probably her, but anyway) friends. And then all the names in her address book will get an email like this:

I’m thinking that any photo that you’ll eventually get to see isn’t worth the effort of signing up for the ShoppyBag. See?

“Is ShoppyBag a scam of come sort?

ShoppyBag Virus – Gmail Help‎
How do I unsubscribe from this Shoppybag scam? It is invading my …‎
What can we do to get rid of ShoppyBag? I have reported it as spam …‎
I received an email from shoppybag.com saying someone, who I don’t …‎

So I was in the area, figured I’d drop by to 548 Market Street and ask about why the “ShoppyBag team” appears to be a bunch of cheeseballs. But then, this, this Earth Class Mail online mail service was all that was there. See?

(Bummer, had my fighting trousers on and everything.)

So, if you get an email from ShoppyBag, don’t reply, don’t respond, and don’t click on “report this email.” Just do nothing, as that’s exactly what the cheeseballs at ShoppyBag DON’T want you to do.

I’m thinking ShoppyBag might even be worse than FaceBook, so use caution.

And as for you, ShoppyBag Team, may your souls burn in hell.

(I’ll find your lair someday.)

Oh, and feel free to get a sneak peek of their oppressive terms of service (TOS) after the jump.

“TERMS OF SERVICE AND PRIVACY POLICY

TERMS OF SERVICE

Updated on August 23, 2009

1. Acceptance of the Terms

You must read and understand these terms of service before using the ShoppyBag website at http://shoppybag.com.

You must be 13 years old or older to sign up for ShoppyBag.

By completing the signup form you represent that:

you are 13 years old or older;
you can be legally bound by these terms of service;
you are not in a jurisdiction where your participation is prohibited by law for any reason;
you agree to be bound by these terms of service.

If you are a minor, your parent or guardian must read, understand, and accept these terms before you sign up.

2. Modification

ShoppyBag reserves the right to modify these terms of service at any time, for any reason or no reason, at its own sole discretion. The most recent version will be posted on the ShoppyBag website. It is your sole responsibility as a member to keep yourself apprised of such changes. Should you object to the terms of conditions or their changes or become dissatisfied with ShoppyBag in any other way, your only recourse is to:

immediately stop the use of ShoppyBag;
delete your account; and
notify ShoppyBag of terminating your acceptance with these terms of service.

3. ShoppyBag Services

As a ShoppyBag member, you can use ShoppyBag services as they appear on the ShoppyBag website. ShoppyBag constantly enhances, changes, and discontinues services, in whole or part, for any reason or no reason. ShoppyBag is under no obligation to notify the members about the changes in the services.

As a ShoppyBag member, you may use ShoppyBag e-commerce offerings. You are under no obligation to purchase anything.

CERTAIN CONTENT THAT APPEARS ON SHOPPYBAG COMES FROM AMAZON SERVICES LLC. THIS CONTENT IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE OR REMOVAL AT ANY TIME.

4. Member Conduct

You must obey all applicable local, state, national and international laws and regulations.
ShoppyBag reserves the right to monitor your use of ShoppyBag services to ensure compliance with laws and these terms of services.
ShoppyBag is under no obligation to conduct any monitoring.
ShoppyBag does not guarantee your satisfaction with such monitoring.
You must not harass anyone, including other ShoppyBag users, non-users, or ShoppyBag employees, officers or other affiliated parties.
You must enter truthful information, such as your full name, gender, birthday, and email address, during sign up process.
You must never misrepresent your identity or impersonate another person.
You must not interfere with operation of the services or another person’s use of ShoppyBag services.
You must not imply or represent that you are endorsed by ShoppyBag.
You must not upload, transmit, or otherwise use ShoppyBag to disseminate any form of commercial solicitation.
You must not upload, transmit, or otherwise use ShoppyBag to disseminate any form of content that is harmful, threatening, abusive, vulgar, obscene, profane, pornographic, sexually explicit, related to underage drinking or smoking, related to any form of drug or substance abuse, harmful to minors, defamatory, libelous, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable. ShoppyBag’s determination of whether content is objectionable is final.
You must not solicit personal information from anyone under 18 years old.
You must not attempt to gain unauthorized access to any ShoppyBag’s systems.
You must not edit, translate, decompile, reverse-engineer or modify any software code used on the ShoppyBag websites, including but not limited to, HTML, JavaScript, and CSS code.

Upon learning that you have violated any of the provisions of these terms of service, ShoppyBag may do any or all of the following:

remove offending material;
notify you of violation;
warn you;
terminate your account and your access to ShoppyBag services;
require you to remedy the violation;
take any other actions ShoppyBag deems necessary to enforces its rights and pursue remedies.

Applicability of the provisions of this Member Conduct section are at the sole discretion of ShoppyBag. You account may be terminated at any time and without notice.

5. Privacy

Privacy is governed by a Privacy Policy that ShoppyBag has established and which is attached to these Terms of Service. The Privacy Policy explains how members’ information is collected and used. You acknowledge that you have read and understood this policy and accept it as part of these Terms of Service.

6. Commercial Email

YOU CONSENT TO RECEIVE COMMERCIAL E-MAIL MESSAGES FROM SHOPPYBAG AND ITS AFFILIATES, AND ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT YOUR EMAIL ADDRESSES AND OTHER PERSONAL INFORMATION MAY BE USED BY SHOPPYBAG FOR THE PURPOSE OF INITIATING COMMERCIAL E-MAIL MESSAGES.

7. Account and Password

Once you sign up, you will have a password and an account with ShoppyBag. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password and account. You are responsible for all activities that occur under your account. If you learn of a compromise of your account, change your password immediately and notify ShoppyBag.

8. Copyrights, Trademarks, Patents and other Intellectual Property Rights

Content on the ShoppyBag website is protected by copyrights, trademarks, service marks, patents, and/or other rights. You may only use ShoppyBag content only as expressly authorized by ShoppyBag. You may not copy, distribute, or modify ShoppyBag content except as expressly authorized by ShoppyBag in writing.

ShoppyBag does not own the content contributed by the users. When you upload any material to ShoppyBag or create any material on ShoppyBag,

you automatically grant ShoppyBag a worldwide, irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, and fully sublicenseable, license to use, copy, perform, display, and distribute the material;
you represent that you have the right to grant such license.

If you believe that your work has been copied by a ShoppyBag member in a way that infringes on your copyright, notify ShoppyBag’s Agent for Notice of Claims of Copyright Infringement at copyrightagent@shoppybag.com.

The Agent needs the following from you to act:

The copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed;
The material on ShoppyBag with enough detail that we can locate the specific content;
A statement from you that you believe in good faith that the disputed use has not been authorized by the copyright owner or its agent or the law;
A statement from you declaring under penalty of perjury that the information in your notice is accurate and that you are either the copyright owner or are duly authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner;
Your email address, telephone number, and postal address;
Your electronic signature.

Note that ShoppyBag may forward this information to the alleged infringer.

9. Disputes

These Terms of Service shall be governed by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of the State of California, without regard to its conflict of law provisions. You and ShoppyBag agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts located within San Francisco County, California to resolve any dispute arising out of the Agreement or ShoppyBag. If there is a dispute between participants on this site, or any third party, ShoppyBag is under no obligation to become involved. In the event that a member has a dispute with one or more members, the member hereby releases ShoppyBag, its officers, employees, agents and successors in rights from claims, demands and damages (actual and consequential) of every kind or nature, known or unknown, suspected and unsuspected, disclosed and undisclosed, arising out of or in any way related to such disputes and/or our service. If you are a California resident, you hereby waive California Civil Code Section 1542, which says “A general release does not extend to claims which the creditor does not know or suspect to exist in his favor at the time of executing the release, which, if known by him must have materially affected his settlement with the debtor.” EACH OF THE PARTIES HEREBY KNOWINGLY, VOLUNTARILY AND INTENTIONALLY WAIVES ANY RIGHT IT MAY HAVE TO A TRIAL BY JURY IN RESPECT OF ANY LITIGATION (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY CLAIMS, COUNTERCLAIMS, CROSS-CLAIMS, OR THIRD PARTY CLAIMS) ARISING OUT OF, UNDER OR IN CONNECTION WITH THIS AGREEMENT. FURTHER, EACH PARTY HERETO CERTIFIES THAT NO REPRESENTATIVE OR AGENT OF EITHER PARTY HAS REPRESENTED, EXPRESSLY OR OTHERWISE, THAT SUCH PARTY WOULD NOT IN THE EVENT OF SUCH LITIGATION, SEEK TO ENFORCE THIS WAIVER OF RIGHT TO JURY TRIAL PROVISION. EACH OF THE PARTIES ACKNOWLEDGES THAT THIS SECTION IS A MATERIAL INDUCEMENT FOR THE OTHER PARTY ENTERING INTO THIS AGREEMENT.

10. Termination

Either party may terminate use of the ShoppyBag website or the Services with or without cause at any time and effective immediately upon written notice to the other party. ShoppyBag shall not be liable to Member or any third party for termination of use of ShoppyBag or the Services. Your right to use ShoppyBag shall cease immediately. You shall have no right and ShoppyBag shall have no obligation thereafter to forward any unread or unsent messages to you or any third party. Sections 8 and each and every subsequent section shall survive termination of these terms of service.

11. DISCLAIMERS OF WARRANTIES

YOU AGREE THAT USE OF SHOPPYBAG IS ENTIRELY AT YOUR OWN RISK. SHOPPYBAG IS PROVIDED ON AN “AS IS” BASIS, WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND. ALL EXPRESS AND IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT OF PROPRIETARY RIGHTS ARE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMED TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, SHOPPYBAG DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTIES FOR THE SECURITY, RELIABILITY, TIMELINESS, ACCURACY, AND PERFORMANCE OF THE SHOPPYBAG WEBSITE AND SERVICES. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, SHOPPYBAG DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTIES FOR OTHER SERVICES OR GOODS RECEIVED THROUGH OR ADVERTISED ON SHOPPYBAG OR THE SERVICES ACCESSED THROUGH ANY LINKS ON SHOPPYBAG. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, SHOPPYBAG DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTIES FOR VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS IN CONNECTION WITH THE SHOPPYBAG WEBSITE, EMAIL, OR ANY OF THE OTHER SERVICES. Some jurisdictions do not allow the disclaimer of implied warranties. In such jurisdictions, the foregoing disclaimers may not apply to you insofar as they relate to implied warranties.

12. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHALL SHOPPYBAG BE LIABLE ON ACCOUNT OF YOUR USE OR MISUSE OF SHOPPYBAG, WHETHER THE DAMAGES ARISE FROM USE, MISUSE, INABILITY TO USE, INTERRUPTION, SUSPENSION, MODIFICATION, ALTERATION, OR TERMINATION OF SHOPPYBAG. SUCH LIMITATION SHALL ALSO APPLY WITH RESPECT TO DAMAGES INCURRED BY REASON OF OTHER SERVICES OR PRODUCTS RECEIVED THROUGH OR ADVERTISED IN CONNECTION WITH SHOPPYBAG OR ANY LINKS ON SHOPPYBAG, AS WELL AS BY REASON OF ANY INFORMATION OR ADVICE RECEIVED THROUGH OR ADVERTISED IN CONNECTION WITH SHOPPYBAG OR ANY LINKS ON SHOPPYBAG. THESE LIMITATIONS SHALL APPLY TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW. In some jurisdiction, limitations of liability are not permitted. In such jurisdictions, the foregoing limitation may not apply to you.

13. Indemnification

Member agrees to indemnify and hold ShoppyBag, its subsidiaries, affiliates, successors, assigns, directors, officers, agents, employees, partners, service providers, and suppliers harmless from any dispute which may arise from a breach of terms of this Agreement. You agree to hold ShoppyBag harmless from any claims and expenses, including reasonable attorney’s fees and court costs, related to your violation of this Agreement.

14. Governing Law

This Agreement and the relationship between you and ShoppyBag shall be governed by the laws of the State of California without regard to its conflict of law provisions. If any provision of the Agreement is found by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, the parties nevertheless agree that the court should endeavor to give effect to the parties’ intentions as reflected in the provision, and the other provisions of the Agreement remain in full force and effect. Member agrees that regardless of any statute or law to the contrary, any claim or cause of action arising out of or related to use of ShoppyBag or the Agreement must be filed within one (1) year after such claim or cause of action arose or be forever barred. ShoppyBag makes no representation that materials on this web site are appropriate or available for use in other locations, and accessing them from territories where its contents are illegal is prohibited. Those who choose to access this site from other locations do so on their own initiative and are responsible for compliance with applicable laws.

15. Agreement

The Agreement constitutes the entire agreement between you and ShoppyBag and governs your use of ShoppyBag, superseding any prior agreements. You also may be subject to additional terms and conditions that may apply when you use affiliate services, third-party content or third-party software. The failure of ShoppyBag to exercise or enforce any right or provision of the Agreement shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. The section titles in the Agreement are for convenience only and have no legal or contractual effect.

PRIVACY POLICY

Updated as of August 23, 2009

User Privacy

ShoppyBag is a fun website that lets you refer your friends to sign up, communicate with each other, and shop together. Like any website that offers a service where you register and provide information about yourself or your opinions, it is wise to pay attention to your personal information.

Children under 13

The safety and privacy of children is extremely important to us. Every member must be over 13 years of age. Minors younger than 13 are prohibited from signing up or using ShoppyBag in any way.

If you receive information that a member is under 13, we require the member to provide evidence of being over 13. If such evidence is not provided in a timely manner, we terminate the user’s account and nullify all personally identifiable information displaying on the site and collected from such user.

Parents: If your child is under the age of 13 and has joined ShoppyBag using a false age, please notify us at contact@shoppybag.com, and we will immediately cancel your child’s account and nullify all personally identifiable information displaying on the site and collected from them.

Signup

In most cases, users begin using ShoppyBag by signing up. When signing up, users provide personally identifiable information, which includes their first and last name, gender, email address, email password, and date of birth, and other personal information. The email address serves as the user’s identity for the purposes of logging in. We do not disclose the email addresses of ShoppyBag users to other users or third parties. The email address and the email password are used to import the user’s address book from the email provider to help find the user’s friends. The email password is used only during signup process and is never stored. Users who successfully import an address book are presented with a chance to connect with a set of friends. The default set of friends that is selected consists of those contacts in the imported address book with email addresses that ShoppyBag determines are unlikely to be work email addresses. Users can choose to connect with the default set, some other set, all, or none of the contacts in the imported address book. When choosing to select individual friends to connect to, users can choose to connect only with those friends who already use ShoppyBag. For friends who already use ShoppyBag, a friend request is generated, which is a type of message on ShoppyBag. For friends who do not yet use ShoppyBag, an email invite is sent. In particular, choosing the option to connect with friends without selecting individual friends will send email invites to all contact with addresses that ShoppyBag determines are unlikely to be business addresses. ShoppyBag determines whether an address is likely to be a business address by examining the domain name.

Cookies and Passive Data Collection

ShoppyBag logs standard user information and clickstream data for all users, including a user’s IP address, operating system, and page views. Users should be aware that other websites visited before entering ShoppyBag might place personally identifiable information within a user’s URL during a visit to their website, and ShoppyBag has no control over such websites. Accordingly, some of this information may be logged by a subsequent website that collects URL information. In addition to the standard log information, ShoppyBag uses a variety of technologies to create a more personalized experience for its users. Cookies are small data files sent by websites to a user’s browser and hard drive that identify the computer to the website. We use cookies to allow enhanced features, such as allowing registered users to bypass typing their passwords before entering the website. ShoppyBag, as a social application, displays highly personalized information about a user’s friends that makes use of cookies identifying the visiting user. Pixel tags are tiny graphic files that are included in HTML-encoded e-mail messages. We use pixel tags to gather information about the e-mails we send to our registered users. When such a message is opened in an HTML-capable e-mail program, the recipient’s computer accesses our server to retrieve the pixel tag file, and allows us to record and store the date and time, the recipient’s e-mail address, and other standard logging information. The pixel tag also may read cookies. ShoppyBag web pages may also contain similar pixel tags that allow us to count users who have visited those pages, to compile aggregated statistics about site usage, and to deliver co-branded services as they become available. ShoppyBag pixel tags collect only a limited set of information including a cookie number, time and date of a page view, and the page on which the pixel tag resides. ShoppyBag web pages may also contain pixel tags placed there by third party ad servers, to monitor the effectiveness of their advertising.

How ShoppyBag Uses the User Information

ShoppyBag uses personally identifiable user information for the purposes of the ShoppyBag website, generating invites to a user’s friend by email and IM as it becomes available, and for friend list building. Personally identifiable information including members’ pictures and names are displayed to people in order to facilitate user interaction on ShoppyBag. Email addresses are used for the purposes of inviting new friends to join ShoppyBag and to add users as friends. We also use email addresses to send useful information to all registered users regarding the ShoppyBag website. For example, we use email addresses of users, and of those persons they invite, to send an invitation to the invited friend and encourage them to sign up on ShoppyBag. When a user invites an email address, an email is automatically sent from that registered user to the invited address. If the invitee does not sign up, we also send a reminder from the registered user to the invitee. From time to time, ShoppyBag may share the email address and/or other personally identifiable information of any registered user with third parties for marketing purposes. In addition, ShoppyBag may share a registered user’s email address with third parties to target advertising and to improve the user experience on ShoppyBag’s pages in general.

Profile Information

ShoppyBag allows Members to provide information to a profile that is accessible to other users. Registered users are able to view their friends’ profiles. The profiles visible to friends include personal information such as name, birthday, and profile picture and an activity stream of the user, including items the user has shopped for. Profiles also contain various personalization mechanisms that users may use to express themselves to their friends as they become available. ShoppyBag does not post users’ contact information such as email addresses anywhere on their profile and discourages users from doing so. All registered users are able to view very limited versions of other members’ profiles that only provide basic personal information including name and profile picture as well as the friend list. ShoppyBag uses profile information for the purposes of providing our services to you, such as to analyze demographics, to better personalize our various offerings for users, or to enable other users to find their friends’ profiles. All information, including any personally identifiable information, which is disclosed by users on their profile is available for their friends to see and some information is available to everyone to see. Please do not post direct contact information in your profile, such as your email addresses, URLs, instant messenger IDs, phone numbers, or addresses. We also caution you not to share sensitive information (such as social security numbers, credit card numbers, and driver’s license numbers) with other users or place such information in your profile.

Invitations

The Invite Friends feature is an easy way for ShoppyBag users to invite friends through email. The email address(es) that you supply to use this service will only be used to send invitations. They are not shared with any third parties.

Third Party Links and Ad Servers

Please be aware that links to third party websites and third-party ad server advertisements that are found on ShoppyBag may, or may not, use cookies and pixel tags. ShoppyBag may provide links to third party websites, which may, or may not, use cookies and pixel tags. Ad servers may also use these tools to compile information about where users saw particular advertisements, and to determine which ads were clicked on. We are not responsible for, or have any control over, the privacy policies of those third party websites and ad servers, and encourage all users to read the privacy policies of each and every website visited when linking directly from ShoppyBag.

Protection of ShoppyBag and Others

ShoppyBag may disclose personally identifiable user information if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to respond to subpoenas, court orders, or other legal process. ShoppyBag may also disclose information about its users to law enforcement officers or others, in the good faith belief that such disclosure is reasonably necessary to: enforce our Terms of Service; respond to claims that any posting or other content violates the rights of third-parties; or protect the rights, property, or personal safety of ShoppyBag, its users or the general public.

Security

ShoppyBag uses industry standard security measures to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under our control. Although we make good faith efforts to store the information collected by the ShoppyBag website in a secure operating environment that is not available to the public, we cannot guarantee complete security. Further, while we make every effort to ensure the integrity and security of our network and systems, we cannot guarantee that our security measures will prevent third parties from illegally obtaining this information.

Updating or Removing User Information

As a registered user, you may, at any time, choose to correct or update the information you have submitted to us. To do so, log in to your ShoppyBag account click the “my account” in the header or “settings” link in the footer, change or edit any of the information there, and then click the “Save” button at the bottom. The same settings page used to edit or correct your personal information contains links “delete account”, which is used to delete your account entirely and irreversibly, and “cancel outstanding invites”, which cancels any invites that you sent and do not wish to send reminders about.

Opt-Out

Users can manage their mailing preferences to specify which type of email they wish to receive on their settings page when they are logged in, simply by un-checking the boxes indicating which type of email they would not like to receive. Deleting one’s account will also prevent a user from receiving future communications from ShoppyBag, and ShoppyBag will not share the user’s information with third parties for marketing purposes. Invited users who do not have an account with ShoppyBag may completely unsubscribe from any future communication from ShoppyBag by clicking the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of every ShoppyBag invite and then clicking the “unsubscribe” button; they may also report the email to ShoppyBag if they believe that it was sent by a ShoppyBag member inappropriately.

No Spam Policy

We at ShoppyBag are opposed to spam. Our No Spam Policy and Terms of Service prohibit all users from engaging in any activity involving spam on our service. Violations of these policies may result in immediate termination of service and legal action against any spammer. ShoppyBag’s Terms of Service expressly prohibit users from uploading, posting, emailing, transmitting or otherwise making available junk mail, commercial advertisements, or other form of commercial solicitation on the ShoppyBag website or through ShoppyBag’s services. Any violation of our policies, by sending unsolicited email advertisements to or through ShoppyBag computer systems, will use or cause to be used ShoppyBag servers, located in California. Accordingly, any unauthorized use of ShoppyBag computer systems is a violation of our policies and certain federal and state laws, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (18 U.S.C. sect 1030 et seq.), Section 502 of the California Penal Code and Section 17538.45 of the California Business and Professions Code. Such violations may subject the sender and his or her agents to civil and criminal penalties.

Change of Ownership

In the event of a change in ownership, or a direct merger or acquisition with another entity, we reserve the right to transfer all of ShoppyBag’s user information, including email addresses, to a separate entity. All registered users will be notified of any change in ownership, merger or acquisition of ShoppyBag’s assets by a third party, and may choose to modify any of their registration information at that time.

Revisions to This Policy

ShoppyBag reserves the right to revise, amend, or modify this policy and our other policies and agreements at any time and in any manner. Notice of any revision, amendment, or modification will be posted on the website on this page, and a user’s continued use of ShoppyBag will signify agreement to such changes.

Contacting ShoppyBag

Users with questions about this Privacy Policy and any of the aforementioned statements may contact ShoppyBag by sending a message to contact@shoppybag.com.