"The most valuable commodity I know of is information."
rebelutionary / 2.0
Anyone else sick of Sys-con spam?
I for one am sick of Sys-con spam. It is a perfect example of a media company abusing customers, whilst remaining 'ethical' (the quotes are for intense irony here).
How does it work? Simple - at some stage I assume I (stupidly) signed up for something from Sys-con and managed not to uncheck an opt-in checkbox.
Now - I get various 'offers' from people who pay Sys-con for the privilege of emailing me (culprits include Candle, BEA and today's target of wrath - M7). This wouldn't be a problem if I could unsubscribe, but Sys-con are obviously deadly afraid that people might do this - so those wiley bastards have come up with a better solution - individual mailing lists for each offer! Genius!
How (I think) it works is that for each 'offer' they set up a completely new mailing list given all the email addresses they have on file. Therefor you can unsubscribe (ethical!) but it's only from that offer - which is never going to get sent again so what's the point. Does unsubscribing stop you from receiving new offers? Hell no! That would mean Sys-con would lose subscribers.
Today's unsubscribe address? leave-javabuyerguidem7-...@mailbox.sys-con.com. Despite my best efforts to raise someone from Sys-con, I've been unsuccessful.
Oh well - I can only assume I'm saved by the same thing that saves everyone else, my spam filter. Sys-con.com? Straight into the spam list. What a way to run a business.
Comments
A Better solution...
Tell Alan Williams if they do not stop the spam you are blogging about it on Javablogs every day they continue...
Wait a minute... so you say it's horrible, terrible stuff, it annoys you to no end, then you mention your spam filter, which fixes the problem easily, no muss, no fuss? Sounds like more heat than light - I do the same thing, for the same reason (note MY OWN email address here!) and I don't worry about it.
If the cure is so bloody simple, it's not really worth complaining a lot about the disease.
Yah, I blogged this back in February, I think, along with a complaint about TSS sending me spam that I couldn't unregister for. Floyd luckily was very responsive. Haven't heard 1 word from Sys-con/JDJ, and through many attempts, haven't be able to contact any real human who's involved in the marketing department.
How about simply modifying your email address in their database to some black hole domain (e.g. mailinator.com)?
--
Cedric
I wrote Ed Foster at the Inforworld Gripe Line about these Sys-con bastards. He thought it was crappy but not enough to dedicate a column on them. I have a filter sending them to the trash, but what I ought to do is take every offer and bounce them back to every sys-con email address I find on the site with a message stating "this will stop when I get totally unsubscribed".
Sod the sys-con bunch. How about the company who used to release Java Reports, 101 communications.
Now, I loved the magazine, but it's been dead for 2 years. Why am I still receiving spam from them?
At least sys-con can claim I'm a subscriber. All 101 can claim is that I'm a subscriber they let down [by killing JR and JOOP, announcing a merged version, then killing it].
buy stock newsletter
from our secure server! get next day delivery free! and save over 70% on all of our popular brand name medications. Delete if you dont like it.
buy merchant account
from our secure server! get next day delivery free! and save over 70% on all of our popular brand name medications. Delete if you dont like it.
Follow
About
I'm the co-founder and CEO of Atlassian.
I live in Sydney and San Francisco. I'm an Aussie. I travel (a lot). I learn. I read. I talk. I create. I bike. I drink. I'm all in.
This is my blog. Welcome!
Atlassian
Atlassian is a customer-driven software company, combining brilliantly simple tools with legendary service.
About Customers News Developer
Daily, over 15,000 organisations from 110 countries use our tools:
- JIRA - issue tracking, project management and workflow.
- Confluence - the enterprise wiki. collaborate and discuss.
- Bamboo - the Zen of continuous integration.
- Clover - code coverage analysis - test with confidence
- Crowd - single sign-on simplified.
- Crucible - efficient peer code review.
- FishEye - source code repository insight.
- JIRA Studio - integrated hosted development suite.
Oh, and we're always hiring. If you're reading this, there's a good chance you're our kind of person. See open positions.
Photos
|
Search
Mates
Investments
Advising startups is something I've started doing in the last year. It's a fascinating way to use one's brain and experience to solve other people's problems.
I'm loving it.
Besides the few I advise, I've invested in one, HomeThinking.
HomeThinking provides realtor reviews, ratings and metrics (qualitative and quantitive) for home sellers.
I also make a lot of small microfinance loans to entrepreneurs around the world through Kiva. Read more about my on going Kiva Challenge (update).
