Date: Fri, 22 Jun 2001 19:50:09 -0500 From: Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> To: Bill Moran <wmoran@iowna.com> Cc: chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: [OT] Spam from Windriver - how should I react? Message-ID: <15155.59329.751227.991311@guru.mired.org> In-Reply-To: <3B33E17D.F1F715BE@iowna.com> References: <15155.53722.908690.505545@guru.mired.org> <3B33E17D.F1F715BE@iowna.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
Bill Moran <wmoran@iowna.com> types: > Mike Meyer wrote: > > [Moved from -questions to -chat.] > Honored. Thank you. > > Bill Moran <wmoran@iowna.com> types: > > > First off, the message technically falls into the UBE category, since I > > > never opted-in to receive general messages from Windriver, or > > > FreeBSDMall (which is what the message is about). > > UBE? Not UCE? In any case, it looks like they were sending it to their > > customers: people they have a previous relationship with. Most of the > > anti-direct-marketing laws I'm familiar with provide that > > loophole. > UBE, meaning Unsolicited Bulk Email. It's not clearly unsolicited - that "pre-existing customer" thing, you know. Nor is it clearly bulk, as it's missing all the signatures for being bulk mail. It looks to me like some poor slob was handed a list, and ran a shell script on the bsdi box to send it out setting who it's from. > They're not sending it to their customers. They're sending it to > customers of FreeBSDMall. Actually, sending it to customers of FreeBSDMall instead of customers of Wind River makes a *lot* more sense. Wind River's customers aren't going to see a lot of things change; FreeBSDMall's customers may. > I have no intereste in the embedded systems they provide. It isn't part > of the business I do, and I don't see it becomming part of that business > in the forseeable futuer. I looked it over, and I can't see *any* attempt to sell you those things. In fact, I can't see any attempt to sell you anything at all. Nor do I see an attempt to get you to visit a web site or do anything else that would generate revenue for WindRiver. That's another element of the signature for spam that's missing, but you apparently caught that and tagged it as UBE instead of UCE. Once they've decided to send email about the takeover to the list - wherever the list came from - I think it's entirely appropriate for Wind River to tell customers of a company they just acquired a little bit about themselves. > Now, I can see that this becomes a grey area. FreeBSDMall is now part of > Windriver, and I'm a FreeBSDMall customer, therefore, a Windriver > customer. But, it's like Chrysler advertising industrial electric motors > to me because I own a Chrysler car. Not the same business at all. BSDi/Walnut Creek used to send me catalogs of Windows and Linux software, and I have about as much use for that as you do for Chryslers electric motors. Nuts - those things included prices, descriptions, and information on ordering, which makes them a *lot* more offensive than one paragraph saying what Wind River does. > > > The fact that they've attached the rest as a "rider" is what I'm > > > objecting to, I suppose. > > That's no worse than Walnut Creek - and then BSDi - throwing catalogs > > in with every thing I order from them. I even wind up paying shipping > > with all of it. It sure beats what happened with 4.2, when some > > unknown percentage of people didn't get theirs, and didn't get any > > notification unless they called to ask about it. > No, it's worse for the same reason that email spam is worse than > snail-mail spam. I always consider that junk email (aka spam) worse than junk snail-mail because I pay the delivery costs for junk email instead of the advertiser. This strange cost structure results in all kinds of associated problems, but most of them would pretty clearly go away if the cost structure were fixed. If you consider it worse for a different reason, please elucidate. > I seriously doubt if your shipping costs are modified by the inclusion > of a few promotional materials. Not clear - but I have a line item for shipping, so it's still free for the advertiser, meaning it shares the cost structure that makes spam such a magnet for pump-n-dump scam artists and similar vermin. > This falls into the same category as "I gave my email to www.foo.com > under a certain privacy agreement that stated they would keep my > information private. foo.com was bought out by bar.com, who uses a > different privacy agreement and has no problem selling their list to > other advertisers." Basically, I gave my email addy to FreeBSDMall > strictly for the purpose of being notified of my order status. Now > they're using it to advertise other product lines. I still have a > problem. I don't recall ever seeing any kind of privacy policy for email addresses from BSDi. It may be there, and if Wind River violated it, they are out of line. They should have printed their press release and thrown it in with the subscriptions to get me to pay for the shipping. > Once again, I intend to, I just wanted to get a feel for what other > people thought before I responded. With other spammers my emails read > "See that this is stopped immediately. Another incident like this and > I'll block your mail servers." I wouldn't do it that way. I would warn them I'd treat it as spam, and let them worry about exactly what that means. <mike -- Mike Meyer <mwm@mired.org> http://www.mired.org/home/mwm/ Independent WWW/Perforce/FreeBSD/Unix consultant, email for more information. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?15155.59329.751227.991311>