4 ms·

This is nice and all, but I really hope nobody who has me in their contacts ever clicks that button.

by CanSpice 12y ago

ishener 12y ago
You need to think about it from the perspective of site-owners, not of email recipients ;-)
- CanSpice 12y ago
  You (and I'm assuming you're the person who came up with this) need to think about it from the perspective of email recipients, because they're the ones who are going to be directly affected by this button. You don't say at all how this works. Do you scrape the email addresses? What does the email look like? Does it have any sort of opt-out mechanism? How do emails sent by this conform to Canada's anti-spam legislation, or any other country's anti-spam legislation?
  - ishener 12y ago
    There's no scraping going on. I'm using Google's Contacts API, with authorization from the user who clicks the button. Currently the email is plain-text, but in the future paying customers can customize the email sent You can opt-out simply by filtering out emails sent from your past contacts, who you do not wish to receive emails from.
    - CanSpice 12y ago
      So my mom clicks this button on a website. I'm supposed to block all of her emails because she did so and I don't want to get your emails again? I think you really need to think this through again, because there are fundamental problems that you're not getting. Emails sent this way will be considered as spam, and you'll piss off people receiving the emails, and they'll be pissed off at the person who clicked the button, and then that person will get pissed off at you, which I don't think you want.
    - DanBC 12y ago
      This is not legal in some countries. While your customers are the ones breaking the law you might find your network access increasingly restricted. I wish there was a better version of NANAE still around.
      - ishener 12y ago
        I don't know if it's illegal. I do know that it's perfectly moral. I mean, it's just email... It's not like I'm tricking people into giving me money... I think responses in this thread are somewhat lacking a sense of humor
        DanBC 12y ago
        If it's a joke site then well done, v funny. But if it is a joke site it's attempting to parody bad marketers and they are viciously stupid and thus your parody is indistinguishable from stuff they actually do. Project Gutenberg started when Michael Hart tried to email copies of the American Declaration of Independence to everyone on his local network; they were not amused and so he set up a website instead. The first commercial email spam was probably the DEC spam to all Arpanet. http://www.templetons.com/brad/spamreact.html http://www.templetons.com/brad/spamreact.html If you do not have a confirmed, opt-in, agreement with people you're sending bulk email to you need to be very careful or you risk losing internet connectivity. You're not warning your customers about that. You're also violating parts of Google's tos. Lucky for you Google refuse to take any form of contact from the outside world so your service will survive until someone there notices it.
        lutusp 12y ago
        > I don't know if it's illegal. I do know that it's perfectly moral. In the U.S., unless you have a business relationship with the recipients, it's both illegal and immoral. It violates the U.S. federal Can-Spam Act. > I think responses in this thread are somewhat lacking a sense of humor I want to see the smile on your face when you're arrested for providing an easy way to violate the law en masse.

This is nice and all, but I really hope nobody who has me in their contacts ever clicks that button.

ishener 12y ago

You need to think about it from the perspective of site-owners, not of email recipients ;-)

CanSpice 12y ago
You (and I'm assuming you're the person who came up with this) need to think about it from the perspective of email recipients, because they're the ones who are going to be directly affected by this button. You don't say at all how this works. Do you scrape the email addresses? What does the email look like? Does it have any sort of opt-out mechanism? How do emails sent by this conform to Canada's anti-spam legislation, or any other country's anti-spam legislation?
- ishener 12y ago
  There's no scraping going on. I'm using Google's Contacts API, with authorization from the user who clicks the button. Currently the email is plain-text, but in the future paying customers can customize the email sent You can opt-out simply by filtering out emails sent from your past contacts, who you do not wish to receive emails from.
  - CanSpice 12y ago
    So my mom clicks this button on a website. I'm supposed to block all of her emails because she did so and I don't want to get your emails again? I think you really need to think this through again, because there are fundamental problems that you're not getting. Emails sent this way will be considered as spam, and you'll piss off people receiving the emails, and they'll be pissed off at the person who clicked the button, and then that person will get pissed off at you, which I don't think you want.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    This is not legal in some countries. While your customers are the ones breaking the law you might find your network access increasingly restricted. I wish there was a better version of NANAE still around.
    - ishener 12y ago
      I don't know if it's illegal. I do know that it's perfectly moral. I mean, it's just email... It's not like I'm tricking people into giving me money... I think responses in this thread are somewhat lacking a sense of humor
      - DanBC 12y ago
        If it's a joke site then well done, v funny. But if it is a joke site it's attempting to parody bad marketers and they are viciously stupid and thus your parody is indistinguishable from stuff they actually do. Project Gutenberg started when Michael Hart tried to email copies of the American Declaration of Independence to everyone on his local network; they were not amused and so he set up a website instead. The first commercial email spam was probably the DEC spam to all Arpanet. http://www.templetons.com/brad/spamreact.html http://www.templetons.com/brad/spamreact.html If you do not have a confirmed, opt-in, agreement with people you're sending bulk email to you need to be very careful or you risk losing internet connectivity. You're not warning your customers about that. You're also violating parts of Google's tos. Lucky for you Google refuse to take any form of contact from the outside world so your service will survive until someone there notices it.
      - lutusp 12y ago
        > I don't know if it's illegal. I do know that it's perfectly moral. In the U.S., unless you have a business relationship with the recipients, it's both illegal and immoral. It violates the U.S. federal Can-Spam Act. > I think responses in this thread are somewhat lacking a sense of humor I want to see the smile on your face when you're arrested for providing an easy way to violate the law en masse.