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Breaking Terms of Service?

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 12:19 pm
by climber83
I'm new to the forum so hello to everyone here.

I just got called as the Executive Secretary in a Salt Lake ward. In our Ward Council I learned that the previous Exec Sec was exporting the ward list into Google Docs. The point was to have a more accessible way for people in the ward to see what recently had been done with less actives, etc. so they weren't hitting them up multiple times and bothering them.

Weekly he would export the current ward list and do a VLOOKUP in Google Docs to get rid of people that had been moved out and input new move ins, etc.

The older people in our ward love this because they can easily see what's been done.

The Export and VLOOKUP process was a little laborious for me so I was going to create an app that does it automatically when it dawned on me that the church might not want info being stored in a separate location (especially one like Google Docs).

Does anyone know if this violates their Terms of Service for MLS and/or LDS.org? Any references?

Re: Breaking Terms of Service?

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 2:21 pm
by johnshaw
My own two cents is that this violates the spirit behind the online directory which allows for members to choose certain information be available to certain levels. In practice if all they are talking about is names it wouldn't be a big deal, but if you're talking phone, address, email... BAD, BAD, BAD... IMHO.

Re: Breaking Terms of Service?

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 3:22 pm
by russellhltn
climber83 wrote:The older people in our ward love this because they can easily see what's been done.
So who is seeing this Google Doc and how do you remove their access when they move out of the ward?

Re: Breaking Terms of Service?

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 3:42 pm
by climber83
It is basically anyone who get's invited to the doc. I imagine there are people that still have access that don't live in our ward any more.

It sounds like this might not be a good solution and I think I will encourage our ward to delete the doc and use the system provided.

Re: Breaking Terms of Service?

Posted: Fri Oct 25, 2013 5:17 pm
by russellhltn
climber83 wrote:It is basically anyone who get's invited to the doc. I imagine there are people that still have access that don't live in our ward any more.

It sounds like this might not be a good solution and I think I will encourage our ward to delete the doc and use the system provided.
Agreed. In Europe the church system is opt-in which makes it less then useful - but it's to comply with that country's privacy laws.