cleve callison’s blog

David B (photo by bwjones) is not a spammer

Lately I’ve been trying to close out the email account I used at WMUB Public Radio (Miami University). Since my name and address was printed in various media guides, I got a lot of interview and book pitches, etc. For most of these I just click on an “Unsubscribe” link. The best are those that just automatically do that. The worst (in ascending order of turpitude) are those that:

• Require you do do a few more clicks
• Make you unsubscribe, then come back and resubscribe with a new address when ALL I WANT TO DO IS CHANGE MY FREAKIN’ EMAIL ADDRESS
• Tell you the changes will take effect in 10 days (What th’… ?)
• Tell you to call a phone number, with extensions, during business hours
• Have no way to unsubscribe
• Use fraudulent unsubscribe links
• Have anything to do with Vocus

It began when I tried to unsubscribe from a couple of especially annoying and egregious promotional pitches. I began to notice that instead of reducing my inbox clutter, I was getting more and more of this junk from Vocus. Obviously the unsubscribe request was simply triggering more spam.

Here’s more on this rotten bunch from ‘word of mouth marketer’ David Binkowski’s blog in 2007. His last post was in March 2009 so I don’t know if his blog is still active. Wish I had seen this earlier.