Re: Water tight opt-in (yet another FUSSP)

On January 13, 2014 at 21:30 [email protected] (John Levine) wrote:
 > >For example, I get 2-3 phone calls a day maybe 5 days/week, sometimes
 > >it stops for a few days here and there, from something called "Credit
 > >Card Services" pitching some service to lower rates.
 > 
 > That sounds like "Rachel from Card Services", a well known complete
 > 100% scam.  The FTC has whacked Rachel repeatedly, but the problem is
 > that there are a lot of different people doing the same scam, often
 > with the same recording.

Fair enough but we're not stopping a lot of this, apparently this
whacking isn't helping. But it's not email spam per se so just an
analogy.

 > > So forgive me if I get a bit skeptical when someone tells me how big
 > > email marketers et al will be careful to not actually ANNOY people and
 > > that's only the purview of criminal or near-criminal types.
 > 
 > Well, currently we're 1 for 1 with the annoying marketers being
 > criminals.  Got any other examples?

I did just mention Angie's List sending to unverified addresses,
Inside Apple did it for years and assured me (indirectly through
someone high up at Apple) that they had no interest in cleaning it up
tho I think the list has ceased operating in the past year or so?

Those are particularly vexing because although an end user can block
them of course there's no end user involved in that complaint. And a
site like mine is loathe to block them because no doubt a lot of
customers would like to hear from Apple or Angie's List.

I think you're missing my deeper point which is the lack of any
"organic" push back, any economy.

The main reason you don't get big dump trucks showing up at your door
with junk mail is because it'd cost the senders too much.

There's no real need to block them or make laws against sending you
unsolicited paper mail, or not the typical case anyhow.

<GRATUITOUS ANECDOTE>

In the early 90s I had a mailing list company take my shell acct
"password" file and attach our mailing address to every name.

The post office showed up with a truck with dozens and dozens of those
mail trays, each the size of a large washtub, filled with around 2,000
catalogs from someone, maybe it was more I didn't count them.

The PO refused to stop delivering them, basically, they had to unload
the truck, sorry!

I called the actual company whose catalog it was, obviously they'd
been scammed by the mailing list company, and they arranged to come
get them. They were very nice about it and probably figured they could
re-use the catalogs.

It was amusing with my office hallway stacked with catalogs for a few
days and my landlord frantically demanding to know what the plan was.

</GRATUITOUS ANECDOTE>

But I wouldn't call that a common case.

-- 
        -Barry Shein

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