this post was submitted on 27 Sep 2023
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Depends on how you define spam. A few personalised emails (maybe they were missed? happened to me) with an opt out button, an opt in button and a personalised landing page are nothing crazy.
However it becomes crazy when you track mouse movements, send twelve mails in six weeks, employ 'dark' surveillance marketing tactics and relentlessly bite the leg of anyone who remotely looks like they can be pressured into a contract.
So sending a few emails is fine in a business context, but @funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works's company is way overdoing it.
I guess the context is important, and I'm willing to admit that I'm an idealist with unrealistic expectations, but if there's something being sold and it's not something I requested then it's spam IMO, even in a business context.
They're never personalised. Anyone who knows me well enough to actually "personalise" an email would just call.
Marketers and sales people do call frequently. Most businesses have teams of people dedicated to calling.
People who work at businesses also get calls all the time. I'd be extremely surprised if any businesses didn't get phone calls. I find all these really strong reactions very odd. As everything is mobile phone nowadays its more individual but since the invention of the telephone, receptionists and telephone operators were full time jobs.
People are acting like it's cruel and unusual to phone someone, yet people have been doing it for hundreds of years.
I would be way more wary about someone I don't personally know selling me something via phone than via mail.
Everyone's jumping on this "12 times in 2 weeks" thing. I think you should count the number of emails you get from certain companies and I think you'll find that any sufficiently large company has emailed you more than 12 times.
Amazon emailed me 15 times this week alone. LinkedIn Emailed me 50 times in August.
But you're already a customer. They didn't cold mail you and they respect opt outs. I suspect your company doesn't have a simple 'I don't want these emails' link.
Because you enabled notifications. Again, they didn't mail you without having a prior relationship with you and you can easily opt out.
Don't act like you're better than those two companies just because you send mails just like them. I don't think that cold calling or mailing people is wrong, just predatory practices like you described.
Don't be discouraged to discuss this further though. Just because people have a different opinion than you doesn't mean that either party is right or wrong.
well you are wrong, I do have that, its at the top and bottom of evrry email (edit for clarity: the top link is often handled by the email client, not hard-coded by me, under some circumstances it doesnt always appear, but the footer one always does) as well as a link to our privacy policy, as it's mandated by CAN-SPAM amongst others, and we have further options if the company is flagged as needing HIPAA, GDPR, GLB, CCPA etc - which also trigger different email headers and footers.
I even have a weekly automated pass of replies to emails to check for common phrases indicating they want out like "unsub" "do not" "please stop"
I once had to pull a(n old, different) company out of email blacklists by working very technically with SPF/DKIM/DMARC engineers and issue whole new security certificates across a wide range of web domains so I know full well the impact of non compliance
Nice, sounds good that you allow unwilling customers to opt out easily. Didn't expect that one.