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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

#111

Post by saltyhiker »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #97
saltyhiker wrote: post #93

The real problem here is not the chain of marketing tech that allowed this, the issue is that the marketing message itself sucked. If the message was valuable, many people wouldn't have been bothered by receiving it. As for the message itself, if their intent is to sell you that specific item you searched for, they should say so. Of course, they need to avoid the creepy-factor, which, along with laziness are the two…

> The real problem here is not the chain of marketing tech that allowed this, the issue is that the marketing message itself sucked. If the message was valuable, many people wouldn't have been bothered by receiving it. I disagree. This sounds like the rationalization marketing folks put forward, namely that they're actually helping people . No, they are not. At best, they're shoving messages into peoples' faces. At w…

I agree with you that the lazy/poisonous methods are far too common, and was exaggerating to some extent. In this case the chain of tech may be too sullied for a good message to be well-received.

I'd also like to add that as punishment for insulting the Sears marketing team, I got a piece of spam from them 20 minutes after my comment.

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

#112

Post by not_a_codfish »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #107
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…

You're joking, right? > 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. No, it's exactly their job . It's the difference between pushing and pulling. If you want to show your content to people, start a webpage and put it there. No one gets the right to be offended by the content of a website they're browsing voluntarily. But conver…

You visited the website and you're mad that they choose to show you content?

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

#113

Post by sib »

chadgeidel wrote: post #54
eridius wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this is it's easy to start getting legitimate marketing emails that you signed up for filed as spam, because they look similar to the marketing emails that you've been reporting. For example, for a while SpamAssassin decided that every email from the PlayStation store (even receipt emails) was spam, primarily because they look similar to other emails I've marked.

Even worse - these filters appear to be global and I've spent a good amount of time trying to un-train some lazy person's "report this (entirely legitimate) email as spam". Yes, I am aware this is a fool's errand.

Agreed - I've recently had a bunch of Amazon transactional emails get spam-filtered by Google, and I've never marked them as such.

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

#114

Post by djsumdog »

Karunamon wrote: post #67
actsasbuffoon wrote: post #47

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…

You could use uBlock Origin, Ghostery or a combination of tools that specifically block cross-site tracking and widgets.

It can make the web more usable than globally disabling javascript.

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

#115

Post by calbear81 »

spacehunt wrote: post #108
trjordan wrote: post #15

> 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. No it wasn't fine at all. I certainly do not expect them to share my contact details without my consent, offline or not.

They didn't share your contact information since technically the SPAM came from them (via a technology provider Criteo) so it's still Sears that's owning the communication and responsibility. It's different if let's say you were browsing Sears and then somehow got an ad for the Home Depot.

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

#116

Post by LoSboccacc »

here's another special snowflake that does the internet equivalent of 'I want to talk to the manager'

it is their website, so if you don't like their terms, leave.

I do run adblocks etc to avoid drive bys, but if a website relies on delivering me spam&malware I just avoid it

Also why is this guy so upset about retargeting now? it has been a thing for more than a decade, and without it one would just see some generic spam instead of these sorta ineffective reminders. creepy? sure! then again there's one simple trick to make them disappear: don't go on shady websites where you're the product and bring your money elsewhere.

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

#117

Post by sklivvz1971 »

I just mark all this stuff as spam, including stuff from legit companies that might have tricked me into subscribing to some list.

The thing is, I am never, ever interested in receiving marketing emails. Every single time, without doubt, I opt out of marketing emails. So if I receive one it means that one of these things holds true:

1. It's just spam

2. The website used some dark pattern to trick me into subscribing to something I did not want to

3. The website assumed consent and didn't bother asking

Guess what -- I'm perfectly fine burning all of this crap with a spam filter. It's a waste of time, and time is my most precious asset.

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

#118

Post by mirimir »

calbear81 wrote: post #115
spacehunt wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It used to be totally fine for one shopkeeper to mention to another that he saw a customer looking for a particular item. No it wasn't fine at all. I certainly do not expect them to share my contact details without my consent, offline or not.

They didn't share your contact information since technically the SPAM came from them (via a technology provider Criteo) so it's still Sears that's owning the communication and responsibility. It's different if let's say you were browsing Sears and then somehow got an ad for the Home Depot.

> It's different if let's say you were browsing Sears and then somehow got an ad for the Home Depot.

That's close to what happened.

OP got email from Sears, after browsing their site. But OP had never given an email address to Sears. OP had an account with (say) Home Depot. And then Criteo got OP's email address from Home Depot, and provided it to Sears.

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

#120

Post by mirimir »

sklivvz1971 wrote: post #117

I just mark all this stuff as spam, including stuff from legit companies that might have tricked me into subscribing to some list. The thing is, I am never, ever interested in receiving marketing emails. Every single time, without doubt, I opt out of marketing emails. So if I receive one it means that one of these things holds true: 1. It's just spam 2. The website used some dark pattern to trick me into subscribing…

Resources like https://sneakemail.com/ are useful :)
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