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Every web site I sign up to these days, I'm 100% certain that from that point forward I will now be spammed by them on a regular basis. It's a simple fact of th

• timjahn 13y ago
  Here's the problem: it works. Email is still the most effective way of reaching people on the Internet.
  • larrys 13y ago
    Truth is a certain amount of spam is like a vital sign. If you log in and you have no spam you have to wonder if there is a problem with your email server (if you run one) or your email provider.
• jdmaresco 13y ago
  I feel this way with respect to sites that I am forced to sign up for just to view the demo. Sites that I will never use again ... I don't want them being my best friend yet. If I've tried the demo and I am actually signing up to use your site, this type of email would be tolerable, but again, I generally don't want to engage with the company unless I have an issue. The only time I can see this being welcome to me is in a B2B context where I have signed a longer-term contract for a solution that my business will need support for.
• monsterix 13y ago
  > I have to actually read the first sentence to see that it's spam. I second that. In fact I lost my primary Gmail account recently to unsolicited mail, by signing up with just one wrong guy. Started receiving roughly 600 junk daily in my inbox starting from (1) insurance schemes from big banks to (2) UK LOTTERY from our Nigerian brothers. Betweeen (1) and (2) above, I must say, I did have to actually read first few sentences of (2) to decide that it was spam. That's so true, and scary at that. I guess, this problem actually stems from the fact that by design email is vulnerable. And that we're forced to keep our email address a secret and share it very carefully - like using simple obscurity [username at servicename dot com] type of stuff... but this is not enough. This model also makes spam filtering a costly affair for the service provider. I wonder how much additional cost Google has to bear to filter spam and malicious? Have seen it often that flooding continues and continues until the user is forced to change his/her email address and start all over again. It's no wonder that over 97% of global email is unwanted [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_spam http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email_spam
  • angkec 13y ago
    I thought all of the junk goes into gmail's spam folder by default.
    • monsterix 13y ago
      No it does not. A lot of it lands in the inbox, though majority does goes to the spam folder. Here I got this one, for example: "Barr. D Salim <atmcad21@embarqmail.com> May 3 (5 days ago) to undisclosed recipients you are been compensate" ============================================ Another: Dianne Yak <yak.dianne@yahoo.com> May 5 (3 days ago) to undisclosed recipients Hello dear I am Dianne, I am a young girl, i was wondering if we can be friends, who knows may be it might grow in to some thing deep, i want a friend i can share something with. seeing your email, I have the confidence in contacting you. I know this mail will come to you as a surprise but treat it with care, we can share photos, to know each other more. I hope to hear from your respond soon. Yours faithfully =========================================== There you go! High quality spam that beats Google hand down. :)
  • 13y ago
• searchergss 13y ago
  If you're using gmail or google apps just add a +words to your email and then you can set up easy filters and figure out if anyone is selling or renting your information. e.g. sergey@gmail.com --> sergey+zappos@gmail.com
  • snprbob86 13y ago
    Except that a trivial s/\+.+@gmail\.com// processing rule will defeat that elaborate security scheme. You really need revokable addresses that don't reveal the unrevokable address.
  • lucian1900 13y ago
    Many (most?) of them strip of bits with + in them so you never find out.
    • saraid216 13y ago
      I have never seen this happen.
      • lucian1900 13y ago
        It may not be widespread yet and I just got unlucky a few times, but it's a purely mechanical transformation that's easy to do, they'll do it eventually.
  • Paul_D_Santana 13y ago
    Here is the method that I use, which has been extremely effective for me. This is a Gmail filter that will leave in your inbox ONLY emails that are from people you specify, AND emails that haven't already been labeled from some other filter rule: Matches: (label:inbox has:nouserlabels -from:(importantPerson1@gmail.com OR importantPerson2@gmail.com OR ... )) Do this: Skip Inbox, Apply label "_Non-VIP", Never mark it as important Boom! Now I never get emails to my inbox unless they are from my girlfriend, family members, friends, and other important people. This has the added benefit of also meaning that I never get email notifications on my phone unless they are from the important (and REAL) people I specified above. (And obviously I can add easily emails to the whitelist if necessary.) The other benefit is that this WILL take into account any other filter rules you have in place. And also no need to worry about signing up for services with +emails. Before you post that zomg this would never work for me, please don't. This works extremely well for me and it might work well for someone else so I wanted to share. If you have a way to make it even better, I would love to hear it!
• danmaz74 13y ago
  "I will now be spammed by them on a regular basis" Can't you just unsubscribe from their mailing list? Almost all give you the possibility to unsubscribe.
  • herge 13y ago
    Not from the get-go. You usually have to click on the unsubscribe link in the first piece of spam they send you.
    • danmaz74 13y ago
      That's what I meant actually :)
• 13rules 13y ago
  To me an email like that doesn't tell me they are more interested to 'engage' When it's an email like the one from this blog I actually do feel that they are looking to engage — even though I know the email itself wasn't sent personally. I like the invitation to reply — I've done that several times with a random question or thought about the product / service. Knowing that the person on the other end expects and welcomes those kinds of random emails is helpful. Otherwise, I probably wouldn't send it — and I expect many others feel the same way, which is why these types of emails are seeing a lot of success.
• mgkimsal 13y ago
  "Every web site I sign up to these days, I'm 100% certain that from that point forward I will now be spammed by them on a regular basis. It's a simple fact of the modern web now and I despise it. But when those emails look like this one, I hate them even more. Why? Because a normal form spam mail is easy to recognize. I can hit the spam button in under a second. " It's not spam. Don't sign up for the site if you don't want to get emails from them. Or, be courteous and use their unsubscribe link. You signed up for their site to get their service/product/whatever, and their terms state someplace that you'll get emails from them. That's part of doing business with them. Let me repeat, just to be clear. "IT'S NOT SPAM". Unless, of course, you're one of those whose definition of spam is "any email I don't want".
  • DanBC 13y ago
    If they don't confirm the email address then it's spam. If they default to opt-in, instead of default to opt-out, then it's spam.
    • deleted 13y ago
      [deleted]
    • MichaelApproved 13y ago
      Creating the account and confirming your email address is the opt-in, for certain things. For example, it's reasonable for an account manager to email you as a customer and see how the product demo is going and ask if you need any help with something. If you don't care to hear from them, then let them know but that is not spam. Spam is sending someone email when they've never contacted you before or still sending someone messages when they've asked you to stop.
      • DanBC 13y ago
        Spam is unsolicited bulk email. Since too many services ask for an email address, and do not ask permission to email you anywhere in the sign up, many services are on the spammy end of just about acceptable. Really, it's a misuse of the "Emailing someone who has a business relationship to you is fine" clause. People creating an account out of curiosity do not have a business relationship and are not really giving you permission to email them. People need to understand this because receivers will happily misuse spam reporting tools. Even when following best current practice some email will end up flagged as spam, but this can be improved by following bcp. Just for extra clarity because I mangle this stuff sometimes. > Spam is sending someone email when they've never contacted you before That's why the email address needs to be confirmed; to prevent someone using another person's email address. That doesn't need to be malicious. There are examples of people mistyping domain names and having all their email sent somewhere else. > or still sending someone messages when they've asked you to stop. Really people need to include a checkbox, that defaults to [NO], asking for permission to send email when the account is created. Just being given an email address isn't enough, especially if one is needed to see anything about the product.
• chaz 13y ago
  How would you fix this for OP? If you ran a web business, what would you do to replace email as a channel for onboarding new customers, telling current customers about a new feature, or reactivating lapsed ones?
  • iuguy 13y ago
    When their account is activated, have a landing page that provides the onboarding links, and offers them the opportunity to opt in to onboarding and new feature emails as part of their profile or registration. For lapsed accounts, it should be a user-initiated process. If you're genuinely bothered about lapsed accounts, a "We're going to deactivate your account as you're not using it" email is probably fine.
    • orangethirty 13y ago
      For lapsed accounts, it should be a user-initiated process. If you're genuinely bothered about lapsed accounts, a "We're going to deactivate your account as you're not using it" email is probably fine. Still spam by the definition of the top comment.
      • iuguy 13y ago
        > Still spam by the definition of the top comment. I see where you're coming from, but if it's made clear at registration that say, after 6 months of inactivity they'll notify you to say they're deactivating the account in a month, then it's not unreasonable. Perhaps better than just deactivating it without telling you. With a lot of startups offering freemium services, there needs to be a way to either increase retention or reduce overheads with inactive accounts. You still have to pay for storage on your cloud provider, so closing inactive accounts while not great are certainly within the realms of possibility compared to trying to spam people into upgrading.
• 6d0debc071 13y ago
  You might want to try setting up a second email address to sign up for services. That's what I do, never checked unless I've just signed up for something. :) Barring that, you might want to use a different form of your name. Like all my friends call me the short form of my name - so whenever I get the long form I know right away that it's a company.
  • veesahni 13y ago
    +1 for smart advice - use a separate email account for logins and never worry about unsolicited email to your primary email account :)
• Silhouette 13y ago
  Every web site I sign up to these days, I'm 100% certain that from that point forward I will now be spammed by them on a regular basis. That's mighty bad luck. I signed up for a site called Hacker News, and I don't get any spam from them at all. You know what I want? For them to never send me any email unless I specifically request it. Does that include not sending you a written copy of, say, an order you've placed on Amazon? Another example: We're going to be sending a minimum of one e-mail to all new customers for my company, because we're required by law to provide certain details under European e-commerce rules and e-mail is the most practical and non-intrusive way to do that. Basically, I take your point that people being all chummy and sending you loads of junk mail because you once visited their site is out of line, but I think your position as stated is based on hyperbole and unrealistic.
  • saraid216 13y ago
    > That's mighty bad luck. I signed up for a site called Hacker News, and I don't get any spam from them at all. That's disingenuous. He signed up for HN 2 years ago. That's not "these days".
    • Silhouette 13y ago
      Does HN spam people who sign up today? If not, my point is just as valid.
      • cocoflunchy 13y ago
        You don't have to provide an email when you sign up for HN though...
      • saraid216 13y ago
        Your point is that one site out of millions doesn't spam people. That's not a particularly valid point.
• fyi80 13y ago
  You have interesting friends. Any email that puts my name in the subject line is spam.
• tagawa 13y ago
  I agree that the over-friendly "hey, let's engage!" style is annoying. It feels like a sales tactic hidden under a patronising wrapper. But I do like that the emails provide a human touch. Someone has put a bit of thought into them and there seems to be a real person at the other end. In that respect, I think a middle ground is probably best - a short, friendly welcome with maybe a confirmation that we won't email you again unless you ask. Incidentally I also like adding [Non-urgent] in subject lines for mails that can safely be ignored, but that's just my personal preference.