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But ActBlue isn’t legally required to share the donor’s email address with the campaigns, are they? They could share the legally required information plus offer

But ActBlue isn’t legally required to share the donor’s email address with the campaigns, are they? They could share the legally required information plus offer a mediated way for candidates to email their own donors through ActBlue, for which unsubscribing would be much more reliable than the current mess, and for which ActBlue could directly act on donor complaints that access to that email channel is being resold to other campaigns. So, while it’s true that ActBlue isn’t selling data to other campaigns, it’s still enabling that sale without doing what it can to respect donors’ privacy and desire for control over the email inbox.

m-hodges 2y ago
This is a nuanced contribution to this discussion. While I disagree that, "what if ActBlue was a different SaaS product" is the optimal solution (especially in a market where there are viable alternatives), it at least acknowledges the role one piece of the system plays.
- jkaplowitz 2y ago
  I made I think just one ActBlue donation many years ago, maybe two such donations, and I’ve clicked unsubscribe for every political list that has emailed me since then. I keep getting emails from campaigns I’ve never donated to, new ones every cycle, and so frequently and frenetically that I don’t even check the emails for my ActBlue donor address at all. If ActBlue doesn’t want at least moral culpability for causing that type of outcome, they should do what they can to stop it in the future, even though everything you wrote in your post is accurate. The inability to minimize spam resulting from my donations is the one and only reason I don’t donate. I would happily donate if I had a way to limit the responses to a confirmatory thank-you message and nothing else. Even the alumni relations department for the university I attended allowed me to express my contact preferences once years ago, and they’ve respected that ever since. But not US politicians. By contrast, the one time I made a Canadian political donation - I was then a Canadian permanent resident and am now a US-Canadian dual citizen - I was able to do so over the phone, and including declining to give an email address and requesting not to be contacted or added to mailing lists. Much better. But even there, I would donate more if I were able to do so online without being spammed.

m-hodges 2y ago

This is a nuanced contribution to this discussion. While I disagree that, "what if ActBlue was a different SaaS product" is the optimal solution (especially in a market where there are viable alternatives), it at least acknowledges the role one piece of the system plays.

jkaplowitz 2y ago
I made I think just one ActBlue donation many years ago, maybe two such donations, and I’ve clicked unsubscribe for every political list that has emailed me since then. I keep getting emails from campaigns I’ve never donated to, new ones every cycle, and so frequently and frenetically that I don’t even check the emails for my ActBlue donor address at all. If ActBlue doesn’t want at least moral culpability for causing that type of outcome, they should do what they can to stop it in the future, even though everything you wrote in your post is accurate. The inability to minimize spam resulting from my donations is the one and only reason I don’t donate. I would happily donate if I had a way to limit the responses to a confirmatory thank-you message and nothing else. Even the alumni relations department for the university I attended allowed me to express my contact preferences once years ago, and they’ve respected that ever since. But not US politicians. By contrast, the one time I made a Canadian political donation - I was then a Canadian permanent resident and am now a US-Canadian dual citizen - I was able to do so over the phone, and including declining to give an email address and requesting not to be contacted or added to mailing lists. Much better. But even there, I would donate more if I were able to do so online without being spammed.