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Proton spam and the AI consent problem

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Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#141

Post by alex1138 »

ale42 wrote: post #86
stackghost wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Signal is an interesting case study in UX failure. I and a bunch of other tech forward people were on it in its heyday but after they removed SMS support and implemented shitty UX like that nag dialog: Neither I nor a single person I know uses it any more. Everyone is on Whatsapp or iMessage. It may be cryptographically superior, but does that matter at the end of the day if nobody uses it?

Cryptographical superiority aside, Signal doesn't collect personal data, unlike Whatsapp. For me that's the main reason to use it. The UX is good enough, although some points can for sure be improved.

Whatsapp should be a non starter. What Mark Zuckerberg did to Whatsapp should be required reading for anyone using the internet, and then decide if you still want to use Facebook (never mind, they build a shadow profile for you anyway)

"It's time. Delete Facebook" isn't subtle https://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2018/09/26/exclusive...

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#142

Post by anonymous908213 »

bdbdbdb wrote: post #82

I'm with proton on this tbh. It's not a lumo update, it's an attempt to tell people who don't use lumo about it's existence. Maybe it's not something you want to read but an email saying "hey, have you heard of this thing called lumo" is not something you'd send out to existing lumo users

> but an email saying "hey, have you heard of this thing called lumo" is not something you'd send out to existing lumo users

But it is an e-mail you send out to people who have specifically went out of their way to indicate to you they do not want you e-mailing them about Lumo?

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#143

Post by chrisjj »

setopt wrote: post #77
bayindirh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this is combined with something I call "asymmetry blindness". They may say "but we send an single e-mail per month, this can't be bad". We the users get a barrage of e-mails everyday because every marketing team is thinking we only get their mail, and it makes our lonely and cold mailbox merrier. No, users are in constant "Tsunami warning!" mode and these teams are not helping.

Indeed. I received 28 unwanted emails of this kind in January so far (just counted), which is a bit more than once per day, despite quite avidly unsubscribing from this kind of emails. This month I had to unsubscribe from ChatGPT and GitHub emails of this kind too, although I don’t recall opting in to them in the first place and neither of them spammed me until recently.

> although I don’t recall opting in to them in the first place and neither of them spammed me until recently

Dark pattern. They know you'd spot immediate abuse , so they delay until you are likely to have forgotten whether you opted in.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#144

Post by SCdF »

chrisjj wrote: post #125
SCdF wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree: in as much as I have noticed this *far* more with AI than any other advancement / fad (depending on your opinion) than anything else before. This also tracks with every app and website injecting AI into every one of your interactions, with no way to disable it. I think the article's point about non-consent is a very apt one, and expresses why I dislike this trend so much. I left Google Workspace, as a pay…

> I left Google Workspace, as a paying customer for years, because they injected gemini into gmail I wonder if this varies by territory. In UK, none of the Gmail accounts I use has received this pollution > I am moving all of the software that I pay for to competitors who either do not integrate AI, or allow me to disable it if I wish. The latter sounds safer. The former may add "AI" tomorrow.

I am in the UK. TBC this isn't a gmail.com email address, this is a paid "small business" workspace against a custom domain.

Eventually they backtracked and allowed (I think?) all paid customers to disable gemini, but I had already migrated to Fastmail so :shrug:

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#145

Post by chrisjj »

hojiron wrote: post #131
ivan_gammel wrote: post #19

I think we must make it clear that this is not related to AI at all, even if the product in question is AI-related. It is a very common problem with modern marketing teams, that have zero empathy for customers (even if they have one, they will never push back on whatever insane demands come from senior management). This is why any email subscription management interface now is as bloated as a dead whale. If too many…

Still happy that Tuta Mail is anti AI, and does not push ads on you via email. I wonder who told Proton that it’s a good idea to copy big tech tactics.

Does??

> I wonder who told Proton that it’s a good idea to copy big tech tactics.

The lure of big tech profits.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#146

Post by alex1138 »

Funnily, Proton was supposed to be the anti-Google, wasn't it? Maybe some of "Proton's not in the US, so not subject to scary NSA warrant canaries"

Except... Gmail has handled spam pretty well? And at least if you do get Spam they actually tell you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6090712

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#147

Post by bartbutler »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #135
bartbutler wrote: post #133

Hey, Proton CTO here. There was a bug, and we fucked up. Support should have reported it up the chain and acknowledged this. Things happen, especially at scale, but we take comms consent seriously and will fix it.

Thanks for acknowledging it. Your support team misattributed the email to Business category. It may help to have the exact name of subscription category in the footer of the message.

That's not a bad idea, I'll see what people think. Note that clicking on the unsubscribe link will unsubscribe you to whatever comms preference was specified in the sending and tell you what it was.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#148

Post by pjc50 »

pseudalopex wrote: post #61
bayindirh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this is combined with something I call "asymmetry blindness". They may say "but we send an single e-mail per month, this can't be bad". We the users get a barrage of e-mails everyday because every marketing team is thinking we only get their mail, and it makes our lonely and cold mailbox merrier. No, users are in constant "Tsunami warning!" mode and these teams are not helping.

Our subscription product costs less than expensive coffee. Unused RAM is wasted.

Again, no raindrop considers itself responsible for the flood: if you buy enough coffee-priced subscriptions, that's unaffordable. Usually people already have their coffee-priced budget allocated to something. Like coffee.

(Incidentally, this is why mobile gaming uses so many anti-patterns, to make people keep making "just one more" tiny purchase)

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#149

Post by skywhopper »

ivan_gammel wrote: post #19

I think we must make it clear that this is not related to AI at all, even if the product in question is AI-related. It is a very common problem with modern marketing teams, that have zero empathy for customers (even if they have one, they will never push back on whatever insane demands come from senior management). This is why any email subscription management interface now is as bloated as a dead whale. If too many…

It is entirely related, because AI marketing is an amped up version of traditional dark-pattern marketing. And since every tech company is on the AI hype train, then they all fall into the same willingness to justify the worst behavior because of their desperate need to get on the forefront of what they’ve convinced themselves is the only path to growth. But as consumers, since we are confronted with all tech companies all following the same dark patterns, we feel the impact suddenly much stronger than with past one-at-a-time panicky company over-marketing efforts.

Re: Proton spam and the AI consent problem

#150

Post by chrisjj »

shantnutiwari wrote: post #121
ivan_gammel wrote: post #19

I think we must make it clear that this is not related to AI at all, even if the product in question is AI-related. It is a very common problem with modern marketing teams, that have zero empathy for customers (even if they have one, they will never push back on whatever insane demands come from senior management). This is why any email subscription management interface now is as bloated as a dead whale. If too many…

> I think we must make it clear that this is not related to AI at all Yeah, many companies do that. I unsusbcribed from newline, they still keep spamming me. Funny thing is, they realised they had made a mistake and promised to remove unsubs. One week later, the spam started. The correct solution is the spam button. Always

The spam button risks false positives.
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