Last week or so, my fiancee referred me to MoveOn.org. It’s a site where one can sign up to speak against the current “wars” on terrorism, and possible future US involvement in Iraq. I signed up for it. A few days later, I received a piece of mail from MoveOn filling me in on the situation. And a few days after that, another email.
Now, these emails weren’t advertisements per se; they pointed to other articles and things on the site that I might want to check out. But I didn’t appreciate them very much. On the second email, I followed the opt-out link and thus far, MoveOn has honored my request. That’s good.
Yesterday morning I was discussing this with Jeani, and I mentioned that I received a few pieces of spam from MoveOn.org. She countered and said that it wasn’t really spam in her opinion; she knowingly signed up for something of interest and accepted that she would receive emails on the subject. I responded that I considered it spam because I didn’t ask for it.
But is it really spam?
I pretty much consider any unsolicited email to be spam, at this point. If it’s something confirming a purchase or sign-up, that’s not spam – it’s a direct response to something I initiated. But what if a site asks for an email address? It seems pretty much guaranteed that they’ll spam in some fashion, doesn’t it? Why is it that way?
MoveOn, again, has respected my request. The only improvement I’d ask for is a checkbox at the time of sign-up, asking if I’d like to receive mailings from them or not. That seems reasonable, and doesn’t entail a ridiculous amount of coding.
I just don’t like spam much.
Posted in Technology