Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2012 9:51 am
To be clear, the visibility of an email address and the use of an email address are supposed to be treated as two separate things. Visibility (whether another member can see the email address) is controlled by the privacy settings. The use (whether an application can send an email to a member) should be controlled by a setting in that application. It is possible for applications to send emails without ever exposing those email addresses to other members.
It is possible that some existing apps (like the Send a Message feature for leaders) are not using the privacy settings correctly if they are older apps that pre-date the newer privacy settings. Those apps will be re-done to correctly implement the settings.
As I stated earlier, the directory app does not send messages, it only makes the email address available. For this reason, marking an address private will remove it from the email lists that are provided at the top of the various directory lists.
We will work on cleaning up the documentation around this issue to make it clearer how this is being used.
It is possible that some existing apps (like the Send a Message feature for leaders) are not using the privacy settings correctly if they are older apps that pre-date the newer privacy settings. Those apps will be re-done to correctly implement the settings.
As I stated earlier, the directory app does not send messages, it only makes the email address available. For this reason, marking an address private will remove it from the email lists that are provided at the top of the various directory lists.
We will work on cleaning up the documentation around this issue to make it clearer how this is being used.