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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

#231

Post by not_a_codfish »

lolc wrote: post #168
not_a_codfish wrote: post #98

Just because you write a blog post doesn't mean I have to do it. Spam is acceptable content, you've no right to tell anybody what they can or cannot create. If you don't like it, then don't look at it. If they shove it in your face, it's YOUR job to ignore it, not their job to somehow pre-determine who wants to see it and who doesn't. As a content creator, I'm not obligated to do a background check on each user and t…

> Spam is acceptable content You have no right to be heard. If you try and force it, be prepared to get shunned by society. Just because it's legal to violate social norms does not mean that people will hate you any less for doing it. See when I get mail from inconsiderate assholes, and it didn't get filtered, I look up the abuse contact of their provider. Then I forward the mail to them with a note that it was unsol…

Because that totally fixed the spam problem.

Oh wait.

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

#232

Post by wpietri »

lunchables wrote: post #230
wpietri wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The part I find deeply disrespectful, even more than the hella creepy privacy violations, is your notion that I'm incompetent to decide for myself who I need to talk to. It's not like your web site is hiding the phone number or lacking in other ways for me to contact you. If I look at your website and don't use them, I have decided not to talk to you. It's essentially disrespectful for you to say "Oh, you poor fool,…

Perfectly said. Thank you!

Thanks. As a kid, I'd read my grandfather's real estate sales manuals and I always found them both fascinating and horrific. The hacker in me always appreciates good technique. But there was just no getting around the fact that it was all about manipulating other people into doing whatever got you paid.

In a way, I feel bad for akg_67 and people like him. Our morals too easily conform to our jobs. As Upton Sinclair says, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." I was lucky enough to see the problem young, and lucky again that I could afford to make my living some other way. But there are a lot of people stuck in these ethical traps. I wish there were more ways out for them.

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

#233

Post by DoubleGlazing »

davb wrote: post #58

I once had something similar, if not worse, happen. I was researching some network equipment, looking at lots of websites and comparing products. Then my desk phone rings. A call being passed from the switchboard - someone asking for the person responsible for IT purchasing. It was a sales rep from a network equipment distributor, saying they noticed I was browsing their website and wanted to help me through the purc…

I used to work for a company where a vendors first unsolicited sales call would get them on our grey list. That being a list of vendors we would only consider purchasing from as an absolute last resort.

A second unsolicited sales call would result in permanent blacklisting.

Our IVR system warned callers that unsolicited sales calls would result in this action.

In the IT department alone 90% of incoming calls were sales calls. After this rule was brought in the volume was much reduced.

Also, we learned a lot of new swear words from angry salespeople.

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

#234

Post by lunchables »

yAnonymous wrote: post #201
cyberferret wrote: post #127

I am really beginning to hate browsing the web these days... Especially poop up dialogs asking for my email as soon as the mouse cursor leaves the active browser screen. With an average of 20 browser tabs open, while one is loading I often go to click on another to check on something, and this instantly triggers a flurry of popups begging me to stay/subscribe. Also the retargeted ads that follow me everywhere now. MO…

>Especially poop up dialogs asking for my email as soon as the mouse cursor leaves the active browser screen I've been thinking of creating a public uBlock filter list for websites with newsletter overlays/popups...

Please do this. Anyone remember pop-up ads? Notice how every web browser has an integrated pop-up blocker? They were a thing of the past. So now, apparently advertisers think we somehow actually wanted pop-up ads all along and implemented them with CSS overlays.

We seriously need to band together and stop this shit. It is absolutely infuriating. Who in the world wants to visit a website and then be stopped with a huge ad to join your stupid fucking mailing list? And I'm sure they point to their 2% conversion rate as proof that it works. What they don't know is the other 98% of people cannot fucking STAND it.

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

#235

Post by bogomipz »

On a somewhat related note and what I thought the article was going to be about, what is going on with the phenomenon of a HTML 5 light boxes loading when you are barely a few seconds into reading a page asking you to "sign up for the newsletter." This trend is out of control. If you were browsing shelves in a grocery and someone came and stood between you and the book you would want to punch them.

Does annoying people into something actually work? I feel like it must since its so prolific.

I wish there was a way to block these.

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

#236

Post by danjc »

joesmo wrote: post #173
danjc wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely you must use some SaaS?

Yeah, I whitelist things like github, gmail, etc. But it's a very short list. Everything else loads without JS by default. I can turn it on with a click if I want to so it's a minor inconvenience when I reach a site and I need it. Also, the extension will remember which sites I have turned it on for. I have < 100 sites whitelisted. YMMV.

I haven't really considered how short that whitelist might be but you make a good point and I'll likely adopt your approach!

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

#237

Post by themoonbus »

r721 wrote: post #110
themoonbus wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to do that, but it would sometimes break functionality on certain sites, and the whitelist is a bit of a pain to manage. I've had good success with http://disconnect.me

Yeah, there are some problems, but nothing too critical for me. Examples: 1) Disqus-like commenting systems (I don't use them) 2) Diigo bookmarklet (whitelisted) 3) Youtube liking/favoriting at the time when they tried to marry it with Google+ (fixed now) And I think that's it, can't recall anything else.

Yeah, Disqus and Facebook comments were the issue for me, although I don't know if I'm better off being able to see them or not :)

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

#238

Post by kazinator »

perlgeek wrote: post #229
kazinator wrote: post #17

I wrote myself a web application called Tamarind that runs on my web server for managing throwaway mail aliases. "Tamarind" == "Throw-Away Mail Alias Randomization Is Not Defeatable" :) http://www.kylheku.com/cgit/tamarind/tree/README I log in with my IMAP4 user name and password, and then get a simple UI with a table of my aliases, and attached memo strings (which can contain URL's that get converted to links). I ca…

A public (which also means: no logins) service that offers similar one-time email addresses is http://wasteland.rfc822.org/ You can use any word @wasteland.rfc822.org as a an email address, and then look into the inbox of the same name, without any password. I tend to use it for services that want my email address, but from which I don't want any emails, and don't want to maintain permanent accounts with. Looking at…

None of the inbox entries for "foo" are older than a few days; I take it that these inboxes are purged in a timely manner? [Edit] No; by probing some words I found inbox items as old as 2013.

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

#239

Post by brainfire »

cyberferret wrote: post #127

I am really beginning to hate browsing the web these days... Especially poop up dialogs asking for my email as soon as the mouse cursor leaves the active browser screen. With an average of 20 browser tabs open, while one is loading I often go to click on another to check on something, and this instantly triggers a flurry of popups begging me to stay/subscribe. Also the retargeted ads that follow me everywhere now. MO…

I always respond to the pop-up newsletter signup solicitations with "abuse@(sitedomain.tld)".

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

#240

Post by kjs3 »

DoubleGlazing wrote: post #226

My wife's cousin had something like this happen to her two years ago when she was planning her wedding. She browsed a few specialist wedding sites for inspiration and when she went to to some well known retail sites to start pricing things they seemed to know she was getting married and promoted wedding goods and services on their front page to her. It freaked her out no end. I suggested a few plugins that seemed to…

Yup...with my ex-wife is was first time we got pregnant. Browse a couple of specialty sites and suddenly everyone and their mother is spamming us with new-parent ads.

Let me tell you how much fun it was to still be getting "free Enfamil baby formula" spam for a year after she had a miscarriage.

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