Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Backing Off Spamming
David G wrote in to say that Microsoft plans to revise the spamming "Feature" that we mentioned yesterday on Slashdot after all the criticism. My favorite quote from this article is "We got a rude awakening today and we thought ... 'Let's make this clearer for the consumers'"
Notice the "Email to a friend" link at the end of that CNET story? Wouldn't it be great idea if you could email the story to everyone in your contacts list, huh? They could even add a bit at the end about what a great news source CNET is too.
(Hey, this is such a great idea someone should patent it!)
Regards, Ralph.
My favorite BSOD is a strange one in Windows 2000 during startup: "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NONPAGED_AREA". How is that possible? If a memory space is not paged yet, then how can it have a page fault? Shouldn't it then be a "non-page fault"?
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
Much as I hate to even appear to defend Microsoft, I can see how this whole fiasco likely came about. The scenario goes something like this:
Product Designer thinks up "change of address notification" as a useful feature. It gets included as a requirement, and built into the product. But, as with so many features in commercial software products, Corporate Policy demands that Marketing write the actual text of the message. (Marketing writes the actual text of most messages in commercial software.) Marketing, of course, can't possibly resist turning any message into an advertisement, so what Designer intended as a useful change of address notification gets subverted for Spam.
This same kind of thing happens in commercial software the world over, and will continue for as long as Product Development has to answer to Marketing. Which is to say, as long as there is commerical software.
One more reason to use the Free stuff, I suppose... As if we needed another reason.
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
bitchin' and moaning on /. does make a difference!! ;)
Wow.. Glad to see feedback actually helps. I've seen more of that lately really and it makes me happy.
Mozilla dropped the old renderer in favor of Raport (later NGLayout, later Gecko) and XPFE. Then they dropped Modern in favor of "Modern/2".. Then they made Classic the default skin.. All of these were based on public feedback and discussions.
I remember reading somewhere that Microsoft have had book authors come in and spend time with "next generation" versions of MS Word to give feedback about new features. That's absolutely excellent - I wish more companies would do stuff like that - and why not open source projects too.
Maybe there's some hope after all.
When you get in a position of power and success you lose contact with reality; the main part of what you are doing is working so well that you begin to believe that you have uncovered the 'secret to life' ( (C) Microsoft Inc. 1980 - 2000), and that therefore, everything you are doing is right. What is so dangerous for Gates is that he literally has billions of reasons to think he has everything figured out.
This is a common problem for successful people. Ego's spring from misunderstanding; if you are successful at something and you don't understand the reasons that you are successful, you are primed for developing an inflated ego. Your brain starts trying to understand why you are successful, and the only thing it can come up with is "Well, I must be hot shit!" Once the brain arrives at that conclusion it begins to act to protect that theory, and Ego problems ensue.
The only person I have ever heard of who had a good solution for success induced fat headedness was General Curtis LeMay - the creator of the Strategic Air Command in the United States. LeMay was a judo player, and he had strict orders for his training partner, an air force sergeant, to pound the General on the judo mat anytime LeMay started to get full of himself. This kept LeMay in touch with reality - and kept his from getting too crazy.
If Microsoft is to improve as a company, someone needs to hold Bill Gates nose to a CRT screen and show him reality; that Microsoft often produces really crappy products, and that their business practices seem to have sprung from a contract signed in blood with someone named B. Elzebub.
As Chief of Microsoft and it's largest owner, Bill Gates is unconditionaly responsible for the actions of his company. He sets the tone, it is his environment. "Middle Management did it" is a poor excuse.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
"The Redmond, Wash.-based software company said the address notification feature was only created as a helpful tool for consumers."
Silly me, I thought it was a helpful tool for Microsoft to lock in users and spam others! How could I be so clueless as to not realize it was solely a helpful tool for consumers?
I'm so grateful to Microsoft PR, for without them, I wouldn't know what to think!
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Private Essayist
Sure spam can be considered another form of advertising, but the difference is that there are no ethics in this form. There are various examples of lack of ethics in spam:
- since it costs nothing it is sent in huge quantities and sometimes multiple times
- spammers are in the majority anonymous because they realise that this form of advertising is unpopular
- they will not respect your right to be removed from their mailing list even when asked
- it is not even marked as an advert to ease filtering
Advertisers of the solid world have a code of ethics, and will respect people's rights if enough people complain (they have the clients reputation to worry about) spammers don't and this is the major issue.
The only form of advertising that I will accept with my e-mails are those I have signed up to (opt-in) and those banners on the webpages of sites such as hotmail ( the owner isn't an issue).
My Netscape e-mail account has become unusable. I have probably share the e-mail address twice, though it doesn't stop 500k of e-mails being there when I check it once every two months.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
So why is spam any different? It isn't is the answer. In fact, spam is if anything superior to traditional advertising channels because it costs the originating company nothing...
Ok, there's a nice contradiction. Spam is different, because it costs the target of the ad, not the sender. "Just delete it" is often the answer, but I don't agree with that. I shouldn't have to put up with it.
How would you like it if someone snuck over to your house at night and used watercolors to paint a big 10' x 5' ad for Coke on the side of it? "Hey, it washes right of... and besides, that's what you like to drink, anyway, right?" - and that's OK?
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If I was a MSN customer I'd be pissed! As a consumer I'm just worried.
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.