Orkut - A way to harvest my community for email address?

[skuba]

Hi,
I moderate a community on Orkut with more than 3500 members. I have to send newsletters, but the orkut interface and servers are really bad. Is there a program that would harvest my community go into everybody's profile and get their email address?

I would like to send the newsletters from my own email program.

Thanks a lot,

[rogerd]

I don't have the answer to your technical question, but I'd recommend reading the TOS carefully. Downloading such information for use outside Orkut might be an issue.

[encyclo]

Is Orkut still running?! I tried to log in just now and I still get the same server errors I got last time I tried (which was months ago). I'd rather forgotten about it since it has never worked properly...

Anyway, the terms and conditions strictly and expressly forbid doing what you want, and I'm not sure I'd appreciate if my email address was fetched in that way either.

[skuba]

I undertsand it might not be allowed, but they should protect it then.

I could do the same thing manually, since I moderate the community, but it would take a long time.

[rogerd]

If it's a TOS violation, then doing it manually wouldn't help your legal position. Admittedly, the company probably has more pressing legal issues, but you never know what could happen if they get a few complaints. Some people are VERY sensitive to mail they think is unsolicited.

Anyway, I didn't mean to hijack the thread - I still don't have a technical answer to the original question. :(

[Beagle]

No technical answer here, either. But you might want to think about setting up an 'opt-in' feature, so members who want to receive the newsletter send you their email addresses for that specific purpose. Also cuts down on the number of people unhappy about getting email they don't really want.