eBay : Where "Opt-out" Means "Keep Trying"

Cadrys writes "Like anybody tired of spam, junk mail, and telemarketers, I opted out of all of the above when I signed onto eBay. Today I got this letter (text below) where they decided--for me--to reset my preferences. " I got the same letter today, which really irritated me. I had *purposfully* said no to most of the "notifications", and just because I haven't opted in to what they want doesn't mean they have the right to change my preferences. I mean, that's why they are my preferences. So, today, eBay lost at least me as customer. .

<Quoted letter follows>

Dear cadrys,

Several times a month, eBay sends out valuable email communications with news, offers and special events that help you buy and sell. Unfortunately, we have noticed that an error occurred during your registration process that prevented you from receiving these communications. Many of your Notification Preference defaults were set to "no" rather than to "yes", which means that unlike other eBay members, you're not receiving these types of communications.

We'd like to resolve this problem quickly and efficiently. Therefore, on 1/8/01, we returned all your Notification Preferences to the standard default of "yes" to put you in line with the rest of the eBay community. However, we want you to choose your Notification Preferences rather than rely on our standard defaults and will therefore not include you in any communications until 1/23/01. This will provide you with some time to evaluate these choices and modify your Notification Preferences. You will, however, continue to receive certain administrative emails that are part of executing your eBay transactions.

<Quote ends>"

Comments

and in Palm Beach....

[Anonymous Coward]

Quoted letter follows

01/07/01

Dear Floridian Voter,

Every four years, the Government holds an election. Unfortunately, we at the Democratic Party have noticed that an error occurred during your voting process which may have prevented you from voting Democrat. Your Voting Preference was "Republican" rather than "Democrat", which means that Al Gore was not receiving your vote.

We'd like to resolve this problem quickly and efficiently. Therefore, on 11/8/00, we began reinterpreting all your Voting Preferences to the standard default of "Democrat" to put you in line with the rest of our community.

However, we want you to choose your Voting Preferences rather than rely on our standard defaults and will therefore not include you in any communications until the next election. This will provide you with some time to evaluate these choices and modify your Voting Preferences. Your November Vote will, however, continue to be counted for Al Gore in our continuing recount effort.

Still staying

[Fervent]

So, today, eBay lost at least me as customer. .

Not me. The cost-value ratio of selling stuff on eBay still continues to be the best I've ever seen. I've reached dozens of buyers for used computer equipment easily and cheaply.

You have to the weigh the sheer convenience of getting good money for your stuff (without going through a middleman) vs. a single irritating email. If their service is strong enough, which it is, I can let this one go.

Re:Still staying

[Zachary Kessin]

Well in life from time to time you have to deal with people who annoy you. If you want to sell stuff online you have several options (Ebay, Amazon, Yahoo and Others) None are perfect, the Question you have to ask yourself, is what I get from using this service worth taking the bad parts too?

I can only say that for me it is sometimes worth using EBay. You may decide to use a different online auction or none at all.

There are things I don't like about many stores and services I use, I deal and if they are bad enough I go elsewhere if I can.

The cure of the ills of Democracy is more Democracy.

She Didnt REALLY mean NO, Your Honor

[somethingwicked]

I don't think this line of reasoning would work in court very well:

Yes, Your Honor, She said "NO!" to all my come-ons.

But most of the other girls I have asked have said YES, so her answer MUST have been an error.

So I just put her in line with the rest of the community...and well, you know

Kind of like...

[Black Parrot]

This is kind of like when that Hot Babe opts out of a torrid sexual encounter at your place. You wait five minutes, quaff another brewsky, and ask again.

--

pouting faux-boycotts

[Lemmy Caution]

The reason that you hear a lot of that sort of "they just lost me!" grandstanding is two-fold:

For one thing, people, especially geeks, are extremely loath to admit their own powerlessness and inefficacy in a situation. Even the passing gesture of non-consumption, as inauthentic and short-lived as it is, seems like a response of some sort. The fact that most of us are essentially at the whim of the big players of the system in which we choose to participate is an uncomfortable one.

The second reason is political - the libertarian credo is that the market will resolve all such behaviors. Admitting that the market couldn't do so in any given situation would be a sort of sacrilige, and could lead to such horrors as the European privacy legislations, trade practice controls and other frightening instances of useful public policy.

Re:pouting faux-boycotts

[Lemmy Caution]

However, many defenders of the libertarian credo imply that either some optima will be achieved by market pressures, or that a viable alternative will always be created in the market. At its most basic, this overlooks network effects and entry barrier costs. Network effects are especially powerful in more technologically advanced markets - if 80 percent of your infrastructure already relies on a vendor, platform, or standard, producers which don't have access to those standards will not be able to offer a viable choice, and a consumer will not be reasonably able to avoid sourcing from those producers. Just like the only way to avoid taxes is to live a below-the-poverty-line Unabomber-like existence in the woods, the only way to completely step out of the emerging lock-in of proprietary systems, platforms, and protocols is to simply buy nothing: in terms of the practical demands of day to day life, it isn't really an option.

Ironically, you've mentioned an example for which real-life free-market analogs exist. Even if you don't use a microsoft product, you pay the "Microsoft tax" for systems from well over 95% of the vendors (the exceptions are out of the mainstream market, and due to economies of scale often not even any cheaper) because of the dynamics of contractual agreements between producers - no government involved. Unlike the public sector, where you can actually vote and even run for a seat on the school board 9and probably win,) there is virtually no chance of you being able to change the relationships between the Microsofts and Dells and Intels and Compaqs and IBMS and the like.

Sue?

[Galvatron]

If they reset your preferences, and THEN told you, isn't this a violation of their privacy policy? Presumably they did this because they had a really big customer looking to buy their email list, and so they reset everyone's preferences, sold the list, and then let people switch back. So can't Ebay get caught in a class action suit for contract violation?

"Your selection is an error"

[Grab]

Nice to see that selecting "no" is an error! :-) What's next then? Maybe they'll have a "no" option in the sign-up, but when you click "Submit", it'll come up with "Error - you failed to fully sign up for mailbox-clogging shite. Please try again."

Grab.

Good point, but:

[crucini]

The fact that most of us are essentially at the whim of the big players of the system in which we choose to participate is an uncomfortable one.

Your mailbox is at the whim of any idiot with an internet connection. As long as a person's emotional well-being is linked to the contents of his mailbox, he is doomed to frequent bouts of anger. That's why I think the 'war on spam' is ultimately a dead end - there's always one more idiot ready to spam.
The guy who wrote '7 Habits of Highly Effective People' (what's his name?) talks about reducing your circle of concern to match your circle of influence. You can control your mail server and filtering software; you can't control the internet.
The MPAA executive has a heart attack because he can't control the spread of information on the internet. The geek has a heart attack because he can't control the flow of mail into his system.
Maybe there's a parallel with household phones. In the 1970's it was normal that if you dialled a house a loud alarm-like bell went off, and the occupants dropped whatever they were doing and answered the caller. That worked until it was systematically abused by pranksters and telemarketers. Now the norm is for an answering machine to screen the call, and increasingly caller ID is required.
Any protocol which allows you to make me jump via remote control is broken and will be exploited eventually.

That "default" spam opt-outer in full

[squiggleslash]

Reproduced here as formatted on eBay's sign-up form...

Do you want to receive junk mail from eBay?

No--> o
o<- PattBuchannan
Yes-> o

--

It's Nice To See...

[Steve B]

...that the Palm Beach County election board have found themselves a new job.
/.

Right.

[MAJ Rantage]

So, today, eBay lost at least me as customer. .

Sure. Who are we kidding here?

Technophiles are notoriously weak-willed when it comes to resisting the allure of the new, shiny, and automated. We may talk a good game, but the majority of us still buy CDs, go to movies, passively support the use of Microsoft products (even purchase them), etc. etc. etc.

I'm sorry to be the cynical black cloud here, but "let's rage against everything corporate and wrong in this world" idealism has gotten tired. It's got heart, it's got courage, but it doesn't have a brain -- a brain that knows that Joe Consumer will repeatedly allow himself to be shat upon if he can get the Next Greatest Thing(TM).

eBay won't suffer from this, and I wouldn't be surprised if you frequent their site again within a few months.

Just Over One Piece of Mail?!?

[IanCarlson]

Many times, E-Bay's been a place for me to find junk that just can't be found in my neck of the woods. I think cancellation of your account is kind of an overreaction to the situation. E-Bay's given you the option of setting your preferences back to the way they were, and you won't recieve anything until 1/23, anyway. Set them back yourself, and if they perform a stunt like this again (which I don't think they will) then leave E-Bay.

I think that E-Bay will be well aware of the anxiety this e-mail caused, and avoid situations such as these in the future.

When you receive the emails...

[Thalia]

I believe the difference between your settings and mine may only be that I have the following two set to yes:

Legal Notices

User Agreement Changes
Receive notice from eBay if the current User
Agreement changes.

Privacy Policy Changes
Receive notice from eBay if the current Privacy
Policy changes.

I want to know if their policies change in either of those two areas. I don't want any other junkmail. And I didn't get one of those letters.

But it is certainly odd that they'd assume it was an "error" especially if you've had these settings for some months.

Thalia

What else might they change?

[rosvicl]

Okay, fine, it's business. They basically offer a service which includes a bunch of yes/no choices: do you want to receive this, that, and the other.

All of a sudden, they're saying "we know you said you don't want this, but we don't believe you meant it. Let us know if you did."

The point isn't setting up filters. (It isn't even that filters mean the stuff is still going through your ISP.) The point is trust.

Would you do business with a car dealership that sent you a letter saying they were altering your lease, and call by the end of the month if you don't want to pay more? Sure, you have the chance to keep it the way it is. But you shouldn't have to go to extra trouble to get them to stick to an agreed-on set of rules.

This month, they're saying they'll spam people unless they opt out again. A company that would do that is entirely capable of sending out email saying "we noticed an error in your registration. Please log in and go to thus-and-such if you really don't want us selling your name and address."

Yes, eBay has a good record so far. They also have no actual product--they're an intermediary between buyers and sellers. If they lose trust, they're hosed. And this sort of behavior does not inspire me to trust them.

Perhaps accountability is necessary...?

[cr0sh]

It gets tricky - your data on their servers is being modified by them, because they didn't like your ideas about what you wanted to receive from them. Some would say "But wait, it is their machines, and they can do with the data as they please." - right? Perhaps if you aren't paying for it, but you are, indirectly, by being willing to look at thier banner ads, which you pay for (once again, indirectly) with bandwidth.

Very grey area, to say the least. But what happens in the future...

Dear user,

We are sorry to inform you that your recent email written using BigCorp ASPMailClient did not get sent. In fact, we deleted it, because it said disparaging things about our sister company, SmallCorp. Please refrain from saying bad things we don't like. Remember, we have your credit card number...

Seem impossible? If the dream of ASPs come true, you will pay to see, access, and alter your data, stored remotely on a server not under your control. They may do what they wish with the information, and as current law stands, not by liable for anything they do with it, because the law is in such a grey area over who owns it.

Worldcom - Generation Duh!