Although I found the general functionality of the site irrelevant, I have begun to use the flash badge provided by Wink to advertise the various sites I am on in my tumblr (and now on my blog). I figured that some friends may find this useful or interesting so i decided to send invitations to a few people. Imagine my surprise to find out that one of my friends, who I can vouch never joins an online service unless invited by me, was already a member. Considering that she was sitting right next to me at the time, I inquired as to how she had found Wink, to which she replied that she has never heard of it and certainly never signed up for it. I believe her. A quick search through her email showed no invites (that I may have mistakenly sent at 4am and not remembered) and no welcome emails. Not only is she listed as a member of the site, but her myspace profile address, myspace name and her location have been added to her Wink profile. I did a quick search for some other friends' names who I know are on myspace and found that most of them came up, although they were not explicitly listed as actual members.

Wink advertises themselves as a people search engine so I can only assume that their response to her angry email will be something along the lines of the right to pull information from anywhere search-engine style. But listing her as a member of a site she never signed up for is crossing the line a bit. Hopefully, it is some kind of oversight on their behalf. I also must admit that given the nature, look and feel of Wink, it does seem somewhat icky to find yourself profiled on there if you never signed up (particularly when your myspace page is the only information displayed about you). Not cool!! If you have a myspace profile, go search yourself, guaranteed you'll find something.