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SPAM: Has Sandbox.Com Violated Its Privacy Policy?

Posted by Cliff on from the SPAM-burgers-SPAM-fries-and-a-SPAM-shake dept.

e4 asks: "Okay, I admit it. I'm a fan of fantasy football. I've been playing various forms for about a decade now. With the huge surge in online fantasy football leagues in recent years, some friends and I decided to give Sandbox a try. I read their Member Agreement and their Privacy Policy. I could see that Sandbox was built around marketing gimmicks, but they had opt-out check boxes for most of it, so I went ahead and signed up. I started getting junk mail from them almost immediately. I wrote several e-mails to various Sandbox addresses, politely complaining about the problem. Most of them were ignored. Eventually, I got a response that seemed to explain what happened. It turns out they have two different unsubscribe lists: one for Sandbox.Com and one for Sandbox.CNNsi.Com. I was 'inadvertently' added to the second one. So I unsubscribed from those too. More spam. More e-mails. More ignoring. Still more spam." With all of the new SPAM laws in place, what is the best method of getting those laws applied to the services that still haven't learned to play nice with unsolicited e-mail?

"What do I do now? They have clearly not lived up to the promises in their privacy policy, and they don't seem to care. Aside from filtering the spam and never visiting their site again, what other options are there? We hear a lot about anti-spam legislation, but has any of it actually seen the light of day yet?"

5 of 20 comments (clear)

  1. Rules of Spam again by Tackhead · · Score: 2
    0) Spam is theft.
    1) Spammers lie.
    2) If you think a spammer's telling the truth, see Rule #1
    3) Spammers are st00pid.

    Canonical example - I will no longer do business with Travelocity, who spammed me after I ordered a ticket through them and made very sure to click on all the "no, leave me alone you assholes" buttons. Upon reporting the spam to them, I was assured I'd be removed in what appeared not to be a form-letter -- and of course, I got spammed a few weeks down the road.

    Whenever you say "shut the fuck up and stop spamming me", marketers imagine that they hear the words "except for things your marketing department thinks I really really really do want".

    Marketers lie. It's in their DNA.

    Never give a valid email address to any company for any reason.

    From now on, I do all my travel purchaes through another company, and I use an expendable yahoo.com dropbox for order confirmations. So far, this company hasn't spammed me, but when (not if!) they do, I'll simply switch to another company. And another dropbox.

  2. Re:General spam-fighting question by pirodude · · Score: 2

    http://www.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=ip addy

    http://www.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput= 12.45.166.9

    http://www.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput= 12.124.217.10

    its at&t...have fun :)

  3. Just report them... by bgalehouse · · Score: 3
    While I don't know, I rather suspect that those folks at MAPS would be happy to listen to your story, and perhaps contact those folks for you. Since emailing seems to be part of their buisiness, they probably can and will respond to this.

    If not, they'll end up listed, and you can hope that your ISP subscribes to MAPS.

    Also, if they have a TRUSTe certification, you can contact that group. TRUSTe is pretty rubber stampish. All it says is that you have a privacy policy and follow it. But it does say that much. And many internet sites won't work with you if you don't have it.

  4. try this by darthpenguin · · Score: 2

    send this to them. It might work:

    SPAM WARNING: Anyone who sends me unsolicited commercial

    e-mail will be charged a $500 fee per message.

    Pursuant to US Code Title 47, Sec.227(a)(2)(B), a computer/

    modem/printer meets the definition of a telephone fax machine.

    Sec.227(b)(1)(C) prohibits the delivery of unsolicited commercial

    messages to such apparatus.

    Sec.227(b)(3)(C) states that a violation of the aforementioned

    Section is punishable by action to recover actual monetary loss,

    or $500, whichever is greater, for each violation.


    -MSD.dyndns.org
    "Sucks to your ass-mar"

    1. Re:try this by Menacer · · Score: 2
      Well, no.. but ask any corporate accountant which is worth more: fax machine paper or employee's time.

      Odds are they'll say the fax paper.