3 ms·

This guy has a different idea of what spam is than I do. If you examine a website looking for "sign-me-up" buttons, and click them, and submit a subscription f

This guy has a different idea of what spam is than I do. If you examine a website looking for "sign-me-up" buttons, and click them, and submit a subscription form, then you've solicited their newsletter. Whether you define spam as "Unsolicited Commercial Email" or "Unsolicited Bulk Email", it ain't spam if you asked for it.

lucideer 4y ago
I guess the prevalence of dark patterns in today's websites has blurred the lines here so completely that even the "technically solicited" are grouped in with unsolicited mail if the means by which they were solicited are sufficiently manipulative, annoying, deceiving or briberous.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  "Briberous"? As in, "You can't have this service unless we can add your email address to our newsletter"? There is no dark pattern that will persuade me that typing in my email address isn't going to result in commercial email. If doing that is a condition for receiving service, then I have to decide how much I want the service. If I go ahead and sign up, I certainly can't complain that the resulting newsletter is spam. Online shops often require an email address when I order. They send it an order confirmation/invoice or whatever. Is that manipulation or briberousness? This phrase "technically solicited": I suppose if some company gets my email so they can send me an invoice, and then proceeds to send me newsletters daily, with no means to unsubscribe, well, I solicited the order-confirmation, not the newsletters. That's not technically solicited; it's unsolicited (and it's a shop I won't be using again).
  - lucideer 4y ago
    If that's ok with you, that's cool, but I think many will differ. I live in Europe where we have a few minor rights and such so I guess I just have higher standards for online interactions ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
sodimel 4y ago
I want to see their pdfs, but I don't want to have to sign up for their newsletter in order to get it. If I find something interesting I will contact the owner of the website or share what I find (using https://links.l3m.in/ https://links.l3m.in/ :P), but I don't want to receive an email per day/week.

lucideer 4y ago

I guess the prevalence of dark patterns in today's websites has blurred the lines here so completely that even the "technically solicited" are grouped in with unsolicited mail if the means by which they were solicited are sufficiently manipulative, annoying, deceiving or briberous.

denton-scratch 4y ago
"Briberous"? As in, "You can't have this service unless we can add your email address to our newsletter"? There is no dark pattern that will persuade me that typing in my email address isn't going to result in commercial email. If doing that is a condition for receiving service, then I have to decide how much I want the service. If I go ahead and sign up, I certainly can't complain that the resulting newsletter is spam. Online shops often require an email address when I order. They send it an order confirmation/invoice or whatever. Is that manipulation or briberousness? This phrase "technically solicited": I suppose if some company gets my email so they can send me an invoice, and then proceeds to send me newsletters daily, with no means to unsubscribe, well, I solicited the order-confirmation, not the newsletters. That's not technically solicited; it's unsolicited (and it's a shop I won't be using again).
- lucideer 4y ago
  If that's ok with you, that's cool, but I think many will differ. I live in Europe where we have a few minor rights and such so I guess I just have higher standards for online interactions ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

sodimel 4y ago

I want to see their pdfs, but I don't want to have to sign up for their newsletter in order to get it. If I find something interesting I will contact the owner of the website or share what I find (using https://links.l3m.in/ https://links.l3m.in/ :P), but I don't want to receive an email per day/week.