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Comment by zer0defex | Hacker News Reader

Cool story, but I hope permission was received first to divulge those account usage details.

Yes. Having hosted debates/etc for the white house (I used to run Google Moderator), I can say they will likely be awfully annoyed if this PR was not run by them.

Screw 'em. A London based company is under no obligations to kowtow to the PR wishes of the whitehouse, or the president's pet organization.

"Screw our highest profile customer! That'll teach 'em! Heh heh"

Maybe they'll cancel their $9.99/month account!

Maybe they'll blame you for all their troubles publicly to their 40 million followers ....

How many times do you think the president needs to say "Sorry about the technical difficulties, the company we were using was having some troubles" before it hurts them?

They just publicly, cleanly, and professionally blamed themselves.

I think you may have missed the point. That may matter to you, as a techie.

Do you think more people are going to read their blog post here, or if the president was to tweet something?

At least from the post I read, they seemed like they wanted to keep them as a customer. If that's the case, I don't think your approach will quite work ...

I believe all the details in this article are already a part of the account's public profile anyway: http://mixlr.com/organizing-for-action/me

The only thing not included is how long they are a member or what they pay, though the latter can be assumed since there are only two tiers of members (free and $10 a month).

what account details?

> has been a paying Mixlr subscriber for the last 4 months and broadcast more than 20 times

> On Friday, one of their representatives dropped us an email

At least the number of broadcasts and their account status as a "Broadcaster" are publicly visible:

http://mixlr.com/organizing-for-action/

Normally businesses don't disclose who their customers are without prior approval.

Given that it was tweeted by @BarackObama, that doesn't seem like an issue.

Really? The president does a mass mailing to millions of Americans telling them about the conference call, where it is hosted, and how to participate.. and you're concerned about revealing him as a customer? I think only the Swiss are that much of a stickler for privacy.

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