Update: If you are reading this - please also read my follow up post Zapak - a dynamic and proactive Web2.0 company? which is an account of the events which happened after I made this post.

Someone at Zapak.com (also ZapakMail) seems to have conjured up the "good idea" of sending out Birthday emails to its members.

But as they say - the implementation and not the idea is what creates success - apart from the fact that the email looks like a 1990 word document [and that too hardly like a greeting or newsletter of 1990 but rather looking like some office document] - the email commits the one of the worst faux passes of the internet world.

[The Image has been removed]

The email [below the part shown above] contains a list of all email ID's who have registered their birthdates for the day! Not only is everyone's email ID being revealed to everyone else, their birthdates are also revealed. For so many people who keep variations of their birthdates as their passwords - this is tantamount to revealing username and password for some websites! Agreed that hardly anyone bothers about privacy in India - but THIS is completely unacceptable.

Thank god I have never used my zapakmail ID anywhere and it has remained just an experimental registration!

I wish Reliance moves out of the internet business - its not their game and they are making failures after failures at that. At a minimum they need to hire some experienced web2.0 CEO from the Valley or some Indian web startup!!
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