Inspired by our friends at the EFF in today's newsletter: If your web forum has the following statement:

"The information we collect in connection with our online forums and communities is used to facilitate participation in these online forums and communities and, from time to time, to offer you products, programs, or services."

This gets translated into

"Anything you say or do in the forum can be used to sell you things."

If you have similar text on your site, you most certainly deserve a beatdown. By using long term text to confuse your audience so you can harvest their names for spam, you're assuming we're idiots and you're violating our privacy--even if you "state up front" you're doing it. You require a gladiator-style assault, you little arctic rodent.