"The spam they send is crap; the site owners are managing a crap “business;” their technology is crap. I’m reporting them to the FCC."
Sue is as perturbed as I am about Bob Kober's latest endeavor: Spam from Triad News Wire.
Bob, you are going to have a hard time selling your product to advertisers if they start to become aware that the audience you promise them is thoroughly pissed off with your product. My suggestion? Cull your email list down to only those who really have subscribed and stop sending email to people who never asked to receive it.
Have you contacted Bob directly about this? He is a very nice person (and an old friend). I'm sure he'd do whatever he could to help you.
ReplyDeleteStill not ready to march? It's easy to complain but actually doing something that works requires action.
ReplyDeletePreston, I've met Bob too, and he is indeed a nice guy. One of the emails I received actually came from an email address that appeared to be his (it had his name in front of the domain name.)
ReplyDeleteI replied to this email asking that I not receive any more spam. I never got a reply.
Bob is not only a nice guy, but he has a reputation as a good business person. That's all the more reason to wonder why he "subscribed" people to his company's email list without their knowledge or consent (An act made even more infuriating because the emails say that one is receiving them because the chose to subscribe). That is a PR boo-boo.
(I'm not angry at Bob; I don't know Bob. I'm angry about unsolicited email from GSO-area businesses and failure to comply with unsubscribe standards and the CANSPAM act.)
ReplyDeleteAside from being a PR "boo-boo," it's illegal. You cannot subscribe someone to a list - unlike "do not call" list rules - just because maybe you do business with them. It's a violation of the CANSPAM act and it's punishable by a $10K fine for *each* violation (that's *each* email sent fraudulently). If you're going to act like a business, then do the research first, no matter how nice you are. (I've never met Bob; I'm sure he's nice.)
It's second-rate not to provide an automated unsubscribe feature and it's cheap enough to get one. Using unsubscribe email is exactly what we tell people NOT to respond to; it also does not prevent your being re-subscribed in the future (but tools like "safe unsubscribe" do exactly that).
Don't do business online without doing your homework first or learning what the good models are - let alone the law.
He needs to come to ConvergeSouth. The folks there will tell him how much they "love" unsolicited email.
I clicked unsubscribe and have not received any future emails. Did you try this?
ReplyDeleteAnon, Why should I have to unsubscribe from something I never subscribed to? Most spammers use a unsubscribe reply as confirmation that they have a working email address. That aside, yes, I tried and it didn't work. Sue describes it here.
ReplyDelete