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Is this a new policy? Because the company that prompted me to start the list, Zenefits, is still a Paul Graham darling: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/6543772

Is this a new policy? Because the company that prompted me to start the list, Zenefits, is still a Paul Graham darling: https://twitter.com/paulg/status/654377298234224640 https://twitter.com/paulg/status/654377298234224640 Or, might be that our definitions of unethical don't match up 100%. I consider spam to be unethical, maybe you just mean more serious offenses.

ericsidelis 11y ago
I guess we all have different views on ethics, maybe I'm just used to seeing spam and tossing it out. I find it harmless now because I'm so used to getting it...but its interesting to see how offended people get when they see unsolicited virtual mail which can be deleted with a click of a button. I'm actually more concerned about the actual spam in my real world mailbox that USPS dumps 3 times a week, no opt-out button there.
- thaumaturgy 11y ago
  Among my responsibilities is systems administration for hosted services for customers, including email. What is for you a minor nuisance is for me a major time-consuming headache. For instance, even with a top-of-the-line modern mail stack, including SpamAssassin and greylisting and so and so forth, enough spam was still getting through to customer inboxes that I've had to develop additional non-trivial software specifically for dealing with it. I beat this drum occasionally because I don't want to have to pit my meager resources against the resources of someone like YCombinator who are willing to provide funding (and introductions to enormous amounts of even more funding) to companies that are OK with spamming. And I'm not including B2B cold emails as "spam", even if they're written as a template, so long as there's an actual human behind them and they aren't being sent out en masse (for example, Locbox: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4672162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4672162).
- wpietri 11y ago
  At this point I have been hearing this sorry excuse for twenty years. At least it once had the value of novelty. Spam is illegal, so that's one good sign it might be unethical. About 90% of email is spam [1]; the reason you aren't spending all day "deleting with the click of a button" is that a lot of smart people and a lot of computing power are devoted to keeping most of that spam out of your inbox. You should be thankful for the people who get offended about this stuff, because its only their reactions and their hard work that have kept email a usable medium. [1] https://www.m3aawg.org/sites/default/files/document/M3AAWG_2012-2014Q2_Spam_Metrics_Report16.pdf https://www.m3aawg.org/sites/default/files/document/M3AAWG_2...
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- nommm-nommm 11y ago
  You can opt out of some forms of real life "spam." Info here - http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0262-stopping-unsolicited-mail-phone-calls-and-email http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0262-stopping-unsolicit...
gkoberger 11y ago
This thread is about "selling customer data", not "cold outreach." But since you brought it up, cold outreach for B2B is not considered spam, as long as they comply with the following: https://www.leadfuze.com/cold-email-outreach-isnt-spam-heres-why/ https://www.leadfuze.com/cold-email-outreach-isnt-spam-heres... Not everything legal is ethical, but in this case it seems more annoying than unethical. I hate cold outreach emails and my company doesn't send them, but concluding that YC doesn't care about being ethical because the former president of YC tweets about a company that sends cold outreach emails seems like a stretch.
- thaumaturgy 11y ago
  You're right, I've veered some discussion away from the original topic, sorry. I wanted to focus more on YC's role in this, if any. (As my final word on it however, Zenefits specifically was not sending "cold outreach emails", it was bona-fide spam. But, they're far from alone in this anyway, which was my main point.)
chetanahuja 11y ago
hmm... There were some previous threads about Zenefits where pretty much everyone (customer base mostly) that came in contact with Zenefits was unhappy for one reason for other. This seems to be a bit of a trend for them. The fact a VC is happy with the company simply shows the difference in incentives between investors in a company vs outsiders.

ericsidelis 11y ago

I guess we all have different views on ethics, maybe I'm just used to seeing spam and tossing it out. I find it harmless now because I'm so used to getting it...but its interesting to see how offended people get when they see unsolicited virtual mail which can be deleted with a click of a button. I'm actually more concerned about the actual spam in my real world mailbox that USPS dumps 3 times a week, no opt-out button there.

thaumaturgy 11y ago
Among my responsibilities is systems administration for hosted services for customers, including email. What is for you a minor nuisance is for me a major time-consuming headache. For instance, even with a top-of-the-line modern mail stack, including SpamAssassin and greylisting and so and so forth, enough spam was still getting through to customer inboxes that I've had to develop additional non-trivial software specifically for dealing with it. I beat this drum occasionally because I don't want to have to pit my meager resources against the resources of someone like YCombinator who are willing to provide funding (and introductions to enormous amounts of even more funding) to companies that are OK with spamming. And I'm not including B2B cold emails as "spam", even if they're written as a template, so long as there's an actual human behind them and they aren't being sent out en masse (for example, Locbox: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4672162 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4672162).
wpietri 11y ago
At this point I have been hearing this sorry excuse for twenty years. At least it once had the value of novelty. Spam is illegal, so that's one good sign it might be unethical. About 90% of email is spam [1]; the reason you aren't spending all day "deleting with the click of a button" is that a lot of smart people and a lot of computing power are devoted to keeping most of that spam out of your inbox. You should be thankful for the people who get offended about this stuff, because its only their reactions and their hard work that have kept email a usable medium. [1] https://www.m3aawg.org/sites/default/files/document/M3AAWG_2012-2014Q2_Spam_Metrics_Report16.pdf https://www.m3aawg.org/sites/default/files/document/M3AAWG_2...
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
nommm-nommm 11y ago
You can opt out of some forms of real life "spam." Info here - http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0262-stopping-unsolicited-mail-phone-calls-and-email http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0262-stopping-unsolicit...

gkoberger 11y ago

This thread is about "selling customer data", not "cold outreach." But since you brought it up, cold outreach for B2B is not considered spam, as long as they comply with the following: https://www.leadfuze.com/cold-email-outreach-isnt-spam-heres-why/ https://www.leadfuze.com/cold-email-outreach-isnt-spam-heres... Not everything legal is ethical, but in this case it seems more annoying than unethical. I hate cold outreach emails and my company doesn't send them, but concluding that YC doesn't care about being ethical because the former president of YC tweets about a company that sends cold outreach emails seems like a stretch.

thaumaturgy 11y ago
You're right, I've veered some discussion away from the original topic, sorry. I wanted to focus more on YC's role in this, if any. (As my final word on it however, Zenefits specifically was not sending "cold outreach emails", it was bona-fide spam. But, they're far from alone in this anyway, which was my main point.)

chetanahuja 11y ago

hmm... There were some previous threads about Zenefits where pretty much everyone (customer base mostly) that came in contact with Zenefits was unhappy for one reason for other. This seems to be a bit of a trend for them. The fact a VC is happy with the company simply shows the difference in incentives between investors in a company vs outsiders.