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Browsing your website does not mean I want your spam

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Re: Browsing your website does not mean I want your spam

#131

Am I paranoid in assuming their "opt out" system is basically probably an "opt in"? Related: I know that it's possible to "opt out" via the Direct Marketing Association communications ( https://dmachoice.thedma.org/ ), but have thus far not done this as I assume I'll just get more junk mail.

I think it depends on what companies agree to not send you emails if you opt out. I'm betting if a company agrees to the dma opt out then they will stop and you will get a little less. But I think most advertisers don't care if you opt out or not. It's in their best interest to not care

Re: Browsing your website does not mean I want your spam

#132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California and New Jersey have laws that go above and beyond the protections outlined in CAN-SPAM. I used to work for a company that sent spam (I swear, I didn't know until after I'd already accepted the job), and we avoided sending to those states. If more states would adopt laws like this, we could dramatically curtail spam. As for what constitutes solicitation, I wish it was that simple. In some instances, compani…

the best way to avoid being fingerprinted by advertisers is to block JavaScript by default. Leaving aside the sheer amount of stuff this will break, you're serving to identify yourself in another way, but perhaps not to an advertiser. Given the average website, the number of people using a real web browser (i.e. not bots, curl, wget, etc) who don't run JS is going to be absolutely miniscule. It's kind of like turning…

Can't say much about DNT, but I think turning off javascript absolutely makes sense.

If you turn it off, they can put you into the "disabled javascript" pool of users. So what?

But if you keep it on, they can query half a dozen APIs and get a much more detailed configuration of your browser. Which lets them put you into a much smaller pool and identify you more confidently.

Re: Browsing your website does not mean I want your spam

#133

> This transaction breaks a core promise using the internet: just because I visit a website doesn’t mean I consent to getting spam from it. No it doesn't. There is no core privacy premise of the internet, and certainly not one that everybody used it signed up for. I'm not condoning this behavior, but we're in territory that we don't have prior art for. It used to be totally fine for one shopkeeper to mention to anoth…

> It used to be totally fine for one shopkeeper to mention to another that he saw a customer looking for a particular item.

I dunno. If a shopkeeper kept detailed records of everything you've ever bought or looked at, and gave that info away, it would be pretty creepy.

Re: Browsing your website does not mean I want your spam

#134

> This transaction breaks a core promise using the internet: just because I visit a website doesn’t mean I consent to getting spam from it. No it doesn't. There is no core privacy premise of the internet, and certainly not one that everybody used it signed up for. I'm not condoning this behavior, but we're in territory that we don't have prior art for. It used to be totally fine for one shopkeeper to mention to anoth…

> It used to be totally fine for one shopkeeper to mention to another that he saw a customer looking for a particular item. When you do it at scale, the old rules don't apply.

Right, because: 1) You're talking about a town so small that everybody knows everybody else's business anyway and fully expects this; 2) (yet paradoxically) I doubt the conversation would include much in the way of detailed personal info (unless it was gossip); 3) Regardless, in those days you probably saw both shopkeepers in church the following Sunday and could get any grievances resolved very quickly, and the shopkeeper is eager to resolve it rather than risk a bad reputation in a small tight-knit community.

Re: Browsing your website does not mean I want your spam

#135

> This transaction breaks a core promise using the internet: just because I visit a website doesn’t mean I consent to getting spam from it. No it doesn't. There is no core privacy premise of the internet, and certainly not one that everybody used it signed up for. I'm not condoning this behavior, but we're in territory that we don't have prior art for. It used to be totally fine for one shopkeeper to mention to anoth…

> It used to be totally fine for one shopkeeper to mention to another that he saw a customer looking for a particular item. I dunno. If a shopkeeper kept detailed records of everything you've ever bought or looked at, and gave that info away, it would be pretty creepy.

What about when they don't give that info away but keep it for themselves? Still creepy?

Re: Browsing your website does not mean I want your spam

#137

> This transaction breaks a core promise using the internet: just because I visit a website doesn’t mean I consent to getting spam from it. No it doesn't. There is no core privacy premise of the internet, and certainly not one that everybody used it signed up for. I'm not condoning this behavior, but we're in territory that we don't have prior art for. It used to be totally fine for one shopkeeper to mention to anoth…

> No it doesn't. There is no core privacy premise of the internet, and certainly not one that everybody used it signed up for.

I agree that it doesn't break a core promise of the internet. It does, however, potentially break the law. To be clear, it doesn't necessarily break it. But if the author actually has never given his email address to anyone who explicitly stated that it could be resold or transferred to a partner, then this violates CAN-SPAM.

Re: Browsing your website does not mean I want your spam

#138
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're not allowed to send unsolicited emails. Actually, you ARE allowed to send unsolicited email, even commercial (UCE). It has to be clearly labeled, contain the postal address of the sender, and contain unsubscribe links. Also, CAN-SPAM only applies to senders in the U.S. (unfortunately). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CAN-SPAM_Act_of_2003#Applicabi...

I don't know if I would call it a "relationship" message, but maybe it's a "transactional" message, where serving the webpage counts as the transaction?

When I worked somewhere that did a decent amount of email marketing, we were told our abandoned cart emails were not transactional, as there were not actually a part of any kind of transaction (yet). Not sure on the actual status though.

Re: Browsing your website does not mean I want your spam

#139
> Only when we craft the email on behalf of our advertisers, we receive your name, surname and email address from our partners, should you have consented to receive their emails marketing.

> Let’s ignore the fact that they assume Sears had my consent (they didn’t).

Just a note: I think what Criteo is saying here is that you gave permission to some third party to use your email for marketing purposes and to share it with their "partners", not that you gave Sears permission to use it. But they shared it with Criteo and Criteo shared it with Sears (or sent the email on their behalf) so technically there is "consent". (Of course in practice it's often possible to supposedly give such consent without ever realizing what you're opting into.)

Re: Browsing your website does not mean I want your spam

#140

> This transaction breaks a core promise using the internet: just because I visit a website doesn’t mean I consent to getting spam from it. No it doesn't. There is no core privacy premise of the internet, and certainly not one that everybody used it signed up for. I'm not condoning this behavior, but we're in territory that we don't have prior art for. It used to be totally fine for one shopkeeper to mention to anoth…

> It used to be totally fine for one shopkeeper to mention to another that he saw a customer looking for a particular item. When you do it at scale, the old rules don't apply. The on-line equivalent of that would be e-commerce sites sharing their detailed analytics data with each other. What was described in the article is more alike to a shopkeeper saying to another, "Did you see that woman in red scarf? Her name is…

"She's just received a big payout from her ex-husband so she'll be willing to pay more, and she likes cats, especially white ones. Also her sister's birthday is coming up and the sister is obsessed with horse racing so you might be able to sell her some memorabilia. Jack up the price so she'll think it's valuable."
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