If you are an older user of Dropbox and initially invited friends from Google, you may find that your Google contacts of ‘ol are still accessible via the Dropbox email referral system. This may very well include Yahoo contacts however for myself, I have only previously used Google for contact import.

In an attempt to replicate this, follow these steps:

1. Log into your Dropbox account. From the home page, click the link at the top which says “Get free space!”.

2. A new page will open (https://www.dropbox.com/getspace) displaying the options available on your account allowing you to gain additional space. Click the “Refer friends to Dropbox” link to continue.

3. You will then continue to the Dropbox Referrals page (https://www.dropbox.com/referrals). Select “Invite your email contacts” in order to… surprise… invite your email contacts!

4. This is where your selection may vary. Seeing as I use Google for email services, I selected Google. I have not tested this issues with Yahoo, however you may experience the same results using a Yahoo account.

5. Dependent upon your selection, a window will appear requiring your authorization to connect to your messaging service. “Allow access”, and Dropbox will subsequently load your contacts from your email service.

6. If you have previously authorized Dropbox to access your contacts in order to send referrals, you may possibly be presented with a list containing your current contacts in addition to your previously referred contacts.

My concern with this system is due to the fact that in Google, I recognized I actually had no contacts. (This is due to changes I made because of synchronization with iCloud, my iPhone, and Google Voice. I decided to delete my contacts from Google as I was receiving multiple copies of my contacts.) Why were 252 contacts loaded by Dropbox when no contacts actually existed.

If the contacts were previously emailed via Dropbox on my behalf in order to refer services, these contacts should be securely saved for cross-reference to provide the appropriate bonus space. In no way do I doubt the need for such a system. I do not believe it is in any way secure to display these email addresses and names when the contacts are not present in the service contacts.

Any feedback on this issue would be appreciated.