Slashdot Mirror
7 Ways to Be Mistaken for a Spammer
ancientribe writes "The "This is Spam" button popping up on many service providers' email services can be empowering for a user, but it can also be the kiss of death for a legitimate business that gets canned with a click of that button. Dark Reading has a story on seven common missteps that can lead to a case of mistaken spammmer identity for a legit business trying to send its marketing email, newsletters or other correspondence."
As an addition to #1, I hate websites that require you to enter a password to UNSUBSCRIBE. Like their marketing emails are so precious that they don't want anyone else unsubscribing you. Yeah.... Most likely you would have forgotten said password.
It also helps when you consider the layout of your eMail carefully. It has happened several times now that users come complaining that our mailserver tags their mail as spam. When investigating the eMail it is virtual in distinguishable from real spam. Some users even think that spam-layout and tricks to fool rulebased anti-spam programs is a "standard" for advertising, and things like obfuscating words are "Cool". (Really, I'm not joking)
Smoke me a kipper, I'll be back for breakfast!
Let me just clear the tears out of my eyes.. phew, okay.
Excuse me if I don't worry too much about businesses trying to send "legitimate marketing emails". Think about it...
What is their motivation?
Email is a good delivery platform because everyone reads their email.
However, spammers have ruined email for "legitimate businesses", by making us develop better and better filters to automatically remove spam/marketing from our inboxes.
What is the consequence? That email is no longer a viable transport system for marketing. Hear that? Spam proves that email is NOT a good marketing channel.
Simple: they will go back to their previous techniques.
I don't see how this is a problem. The public has made it clear: Email is not intended for marketing. Use other channels.
We have simply drawn a line in the sand, the existence of spam filters is a message to companies out there who want to abuse email: "We don't want it." I don't see how this is a problem. Marketing has plenty of other tricks up their sleeve, they don't need this one.
No! Remove any self-identifying information and then tear up the paperwork and send it back to them in their own postage-paid envelope. Toss some small rocks in there just for good measure since they pay the return postage by weight. Once you've done this a few times, it become second nature and only takes a moment.