if it wasn’t for the constant fucking spam they send me on a daily basis and the fact I was signed up to their newsletter and mailing lists without permission. So fuck em. I’ll still attend the discussion panel on privacy they asked me to be on though where I’m sure I’ll mention how spamming me invaded mine.
Damien Mulley
Invisible people have invisible rights
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I think being signed up for newsletters without your permission is the new spam.
A few months ago I was suddenly signed up to a large number of electronic newsletters – everything from Oil science newsletters to a comedy club in Australia. The sites are legit, and while they might want more readers I don’t think they are trawling for addresses (I seriously doubt the IEEE has to do this for their Electrical Engineering Newsletter). For many of them I have unsubscribed only to find myself getting the emails again a few months later. I have yet to figure out who is doing this, or what they benefit from it.
I would be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.
[…] panel: Damien Mulley (blogger, consultant and fan of fluff and chicken feet; coming despite the spam), smart techlaw solicitor Caroline Campbell, music journo (and blogger too) Jim Carroll, Cormac […]
Should be an interesting discussion.
Depends. The person responsible for the spamming might not be at the session, and the people running the session might not have had any role in the spamming.
Lynching them for others’ faults would be unfair to them.
SK: actually, this is the _old_ spam.
When we were working on anti-spam law proposals back in 2002-2003, it was already very clear that there were a number of possible dangers of allowing people to be signed up for email lists without an additional “confirmation” step:
– 1. “Subscribe bombing”. It’s easy enough for someone with a grudge to attack another person, given their email address, by putting that addr into the subscription forms for hundreds of newsletters; the person then has to manually go to each newsletter, and jump through whatever hoops they have for unsubscription. in the late ’90s, you could download software that would subscribe your target to 1000s of mailing lists with a single click.
– 2. “One bite of the apple”. Many mainstream e-mail marketers wanted a situation where it was legal to send a mail to someone, without their permission, and if they didn’t want that newsletter in future, they then had to unsubscribe. Of course, you can imagine, with millions of companies in the US engaging in e-mail marketing, that “one bite of the apple” quickly would add up to thousands of single “bites” per day in your inbox….
Anyway, these, and other reasons, are why it’s now a legal requirement for marketers in the EU to require “confirmed opt-in”. It’s illegal for Darklight to send unsolicited bulk email to Damien like this, without Damien’s confirmation that he’s willing to receive it. So not very clever at all…
@Justin – great points, but do you think Darklight know what they’re doing is spamming? Do you think they know they shouldn’t send people multiple emails, or do you think it may be a temp in the office who is asked to do something from a spreadsheet, hasn’t got proper instructions because the small team is so busy in the run up to tonight’s launch and that they’re hoping people will understand?
I’m not by any means excusing or defending them but I’m also aware of how small festivals operate, what resource constraints they’re under and the lack of communication that can sometimes happen and the fact that a LOT of people out there don’t seem to know that they shouldn’t do what they’re doing.
Benefit of the doubt is always something that should be taken into account.
They should have taken Damien’s email off the list once he requested it, that’s just unprofessional, but then their response may be, we’re running a film festival professionally, not emailing people professionally.
Difficult to know where to stand on this one.
Give me a fucking break Darragh. Ignorance of the Law is not an excuse. Play Ghandi somewhere else.
‘They should have taken Damien’s email off the list once he requested it, that’s just unprofessional’
um no, that’s illegal.
It’s important for them to be able to find their asses with both hands, regardless of how small-scale their organisation is…
Damien, thanks for the response. I’m not saying it’s an excuse and I’m not saying what they did was right -at all – and I’m not playing Gandhi, but responding to Justin’s “illegal” comment, I’m just saying that not everyone knows it. That’s simply it.
I’ve had similar multiple emails from them.
Are you saying anything at all because you seem to be “not saying” everything?
Just trying to respond to your points, that’s all 🙂
Damien,
Blame Una.