My friend and colleague Nick Usborne has the gift for a “turn of phrase.” He used the words white color spam in his blog a few days ago. Next thing he knows, Seth Godin mentioned it in his blog. Then came a call from The New York Times. And this article, Big Companies Add to Spam by Saul Hansell which quotes Nick.
You know what he’s talking about. When you register on the Palm site, for example, using an email address you don’t use for anything else. Subsequently you begin receiving emails you haven’t asked for from other big name companies - to that particular address.
These mainstream companies are (discreetly, it seems) trading your email address with one another. Or perhaps there was a box you forgot to uncheck, in miniscule type, that said they might “tell you about related products or services.”
This is a scam. And it’s definitely a form of spam.
The companies involved might not even be aware of the exchanges if they work through a third-party provider.
It pays to look at the privacy policy, but it seems too much to ask that we have to navigate around the site to find out if it’s safe before diving in.
Meanwhile, companies trying to send out legitimate news to subscribers are blocked by SPAM filters.
I feel like the advantages to e-mail marketing are dwindling. Soon, no businesses will accept messages in bulk and it’s hard to push out messages to people when they don’t visit your site regularly… yet.
People pay for this news! This should be interesting.
It’s like the Do Not Call Registry. Except that you don’t know your message is blocked in many cases, unless it starts to happen on your own mail server.
Another fad? Shorter-lived than telemarketing?
Meanwhile, companies trying to send out legitimate news to subscribers are blocked by SPAM filters.
I feel like the advantages to e-mail marketing are dwindling. Soon, no businesses will accept messages in bulk and it’s hard to push out messages to people when they don’t visit your site regularly… yet.
People pay for this news! This should be interesting.
It’s like the Do Not Call Registry. Except that you don’t know your message is blocked in many cases, unless it starts to happen on your own mail server.
Another fad? Shorter-lived than telemarketing?
I hope you don’t mind if I point out, Debbie, that Nick Usborne coined the phrase ‘white collar spam’ and not ‘white color spam’. My own experience shows that legit companies do abuse the ‘permission’ they have from me to spam me from time to time.
If you would be unloved and forgotten, be reasonable.
Some nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.
Truth is a kind and gentle lie.