Ram Krishnan, Frito-Lay, Lays, and Anindita Mukherjee are all idiots!
I can’t believe I had to do this again!
Today I got spammed again by Frito-Lay – this is the SECOND time Frito-Lay has spammed me in my capacity as an educator and they should be ashamed at themselves.
Today I got the following in my email:
So where is the legally required opt out link? Not only that – this is the second time Frito-Lay has spammed me in the past 6 months!
Amazing!
If you are wondering who Anindita Mukherjee is? She is the VP of Marketing and its her responsibility to keep her marketing people in compliance!
Losers every one!
Canon you are idiots! Shocking, I know, but true!
So as part of my campaign to have a cleaner mailbox I regularly remove myself from unwanted mailing lists. It has gone surprisingly better than expected. Just the other day I got an email from Canon. Now upon reflection I get these quite often as I probably voluntarily subscribed to a list. I went back into my email archives and found hundreds of emails from Canon starting with a registration to a Canon forum when I was requesting some technical support. This is fair enough and quite common – you post to us – we post to you. I no longer have the camera or use any Canon products so I figured now is the time to Opt-Out The bottom of the email was marked: If you received this e-mail in error or wish to stop receiving e-mail communications from the Consumer Imaging Group of Canon U.S.A., Inc., please unsubscribe. I clicked on the unsubscribe link and was taken to a webpage that looked like roughly this:
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OK let’s look at this carefully.
1) This is not an unscubscribe page – it in reality is a subscription modification page.
2) It is nice that is lets me change my email or even see samples BUT
3) If I want to opt-out I have to click every single checkbox
OK so you think I’m splitting hairs here but if they cared they should let me out quickly!
So I did it – I unchecked every checkbox and hit submit button and was told this:
Your request will be processed as soon as possible.
Visit our product lineups at the link below:
http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/controller?act=ConsumerHomePageAct
and with it my favorite line:
Duplication in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
Just to put that bullshit aside for a moment this seemed like a fairly similar situation:
1) They sent me a link
2) I unchecked the boxes
3) They removed me from the list
But today I got another email from them!
Now – I know what you are thinking – they did say that they would get to it as soon as possible.
But here is the kicker – when I went to unsubscribe again – all the boxes where unchecked already!
They KNOW! The subscription database KNOWS that I have opted out and yet they sent me another email anyways!
So Canon – what they hell is wrong with you?
Is your system run by two separate databases that only get merged when you feel like it?
Do you continue to purposely sent out emails to people who opt-out after you KNOW they have opted out under the illusion that this takes time?
How long will I continue to get emails fro you even after I have opted out?
With that I say – Cannon – you are idiots!
Nahum Laufer – You are an idiot!
Nahum Laufer – You are an idiotand you just don’t seem to get it!
So I got this email from a guy trying to self-promote a film called “The Darien Dilemma”. It seemed familiar and I went back through my email and found that he has emailed me eight times since last year and not one of them contains an opt out link!
Better yet it is an obnoxious email that claims they collected my name off of a website – which is supposed to make the SPAM ok? He even admits that he keeps sending it over and over again! I also love the anti-virus notice at the bottom of the email.
My only joy is that I in-lined the image from their site so I wouldn’t waste my bandwidth!
So for failure for an opt-out and repeated emails I have to say:
Nahum Laufer – You are an idiot and you just don’t seem to get it!
This one was so bad I am tempted to just report it!
Here is the email – oh and the crappy formatting is what it really looked like!
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From: laufern@netvision.net.il
To: WebmasterDear Librarian
I found your e-mail address in your library web-site. (not from a mailing list)I have already sent this ad to you, maybe once, twice or moreWe are self distributing the film “The Darien Dilemma” mainly by this e-mail ad and we are doing fine every month more & more University-College libraries purchase the DVDWe hope you’ll find our film “The Darien Dilemma” interesting for your programs so we are offering you the film for your library.
We got many requests and recommendations by leading educators to bring the film as an eye-opener for young students so we are distributing the film to School, University & College Libraries.We believe that this film is for Judaic & Holocaust, Women, History (2nd world war) Middle-East Study Programs
Many Universities Libraries already purchased the film among them:
Harvard, Yale, Yeshiva(NY), Arizona State, Vanderbilt, Brandies, Vienna (Austria), Maryland, Miami, Lehigh, Spertus (Chicago), Wyoming, Grand Prairie College, Mcgill (Canada), Connecticut, Seton Hill ( PA),Calgary, Duke (NC), Indiana, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania State, Brooklyn College, Jewish Theological Seminary (NY), George Mason (Fairfax Va), Central Florida, Manchester (UK), South California (LA), Monmouth (NJ), American Jewish (LA), James Madison (Va), Delaware, Louisville, Rochester(NY), Humbolt (CA) Stockholm (Sweden) The Hebrew(Jerusalem), Haifa, Bar-Ilan, Emek Yizrael College, Berlin Jewish Museum (Wansee Germany) Diaspora House (Tel-Aviv), Yad Vashem (Jerusalem),
The film had many screenings around the world (see a list of screenings, JCC & congregation libraries at our site)
Croton Jewish Center Library use including lending for “Home Video” and use in classrooms & film clubs for non-paying audience (30-50 persons) $125
For big Public Screenings please contact laufern@netvision.net.il,
I hope you’ll have a few minutes to visit our web-site specially written for Students & Teachers
Shalom
Nahum Laufer
Research & Marketing
Erez Laufer Films
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG – http://www.avg.com
Version: 8.0.175 / Virus Database: 270.9.1/1781 – Release Date: 11/11/2008 08:59
No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG – http://www.avg.com
Version: 8.0.176 / Virus Database: 270.10.2/1873 – Release Date: 03/01/2009 14:14
Kevin Thier – you REALLY are an idiot!
You won’t believe this folks. I got a followup email from the guy who inspired me to go live with this website in the first place.
That’s right – two weeks after the first unsolicited no-opt out email from Kevin Their – I got a follow up and he also tried calling my office!
This time I called the company and left a message requesting that I no longer want to be emailed AND I emailed telling him that I no longer want to be emailed.
Think I should report him to the FTC instead?
Email as follows:
Per my voice message, I wanted to follow up with an email as well. Are you familiar with Access.NewspaperArchive.com? We have over 110 million historical newspaper images from around the world, not to mention over 5.8 million images from the state of Ohio alone – some of which date all the way back to 1815!
Please let me know if you would like to utilize a free two week trial to view our content for yourself and to determine if the resource would be a good fit for your institutionand it’s students. My contact information is posted below, thanks for reading!
Kindly,
Kevin ThierKevin Thier
Product Manager ~ Access.NewspaperARCHIVE.com
Heritage Microfilm
NewspaperArchive.com
4049 21st Avenue SW,
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52404Phone: 319.390.9442 +16 or 1.888.870.0484 +40
Email: kthier@newspaperarchive.com