scubaboardnews.com?

[mikemill]

Perhaps you should make it 100% opt in so that the pros who don't want the newsletter won't get it.

 

[The Chairman]

Mike,

Overreaction noted. Let's try to not over dramatize the situation. You're one of only two people who complained. We are not going to deny thousands just to accommodate a couple of people who see ONE newsletter as filling up their in box. Opting out was easy enough for you. I imagine that you have spent far more time grumbling about this than it took for you to delete the single E-Mail. I promise you, we are not bad guys trying to spam you daily with offers of Viagra and whatnot.

 

[mikemill]

Mike,

Overreaction noted. Let's try to not over dramatize the situation. You're one of only two people who complained.

Just remember that for everyone that complains there are many more who are quietly upset about it.

We are not going to deny thousands just to accommodate a couple of people who see ONE newsletter as filling up their in box. Opting out was easy enough for you.

That is some ****ty logic. Hey I should be able to spam you because I made opting out of future spam easy. Oh, unless I decide to add another product then I'll spam you again. But don't worry, I'll make it easy to opt out of that also.

I imagine that you have spent far more time grumbling about this than it took for you to delete the single E-Mail. I promise you, we are not bad guys trying to spam you daily with offers of Viagra and whatnot.

Yes, I am so tired of spam that I use some of my energy in fighting it when possible. Do the right thing. Announce it and give people a chance to opt-in. Let them control what is sent to them. Or you run a very good chance of ending up on spamhaus.

If the recipient is given the choice to opt-out, is it still spam?
Spam is Unsolicited Bulk Email. If you send any bulk email to a recipient who did not request it from you or did not give their prior and informed consent to be subscribed to your list, you are spamming that recipient. Whether you offer an opt-out option in the message or not does not change the fact that the recipient has received Unsolicited Bulk Email, i.e: spam.

Nobody must ever be required to opt-out of anything they did not opt-in to in the first place. Given all the nasty and infectious material circulated by spammers, the endless tricks spammers employ to get users to click links to websites which on arrival infect their computers with Trojans, it can never be recommended that anyone click on any links in any unknown e-mail.

 

[bleeb]

We are not going to deny thousands just to accommodate a couple of people who see ONE newsletter as filling up their in box. Opting out was easy enough for you.

That's a frequent justification for newsletter spam by organizations you may already be in contact with. If it's not explicitly requested and not opt-in, it's still spam. I file any such 'newsletters' with anti-spam organizations, who also regard it as spam.

 

[D_B]

I think that opting in to receiving the newsletter, like we did for the ones before, is the way to go ... reusing the previously selected opt in OK is fine

 

[The Chairman]

We won't be sending to anyone who has not yet ALREADY opted in to the Newsletter. That's how the names are pulled. IF you have opted in to receiving Newsletters AND you have joined one of the professional user groups, you can EXPECT to get the ScubaBoard Pro Newsletter.

Someone please explain to me how this can be considered SPAM. You can't because it isn't. We are not going to throw out everyone who has requested to receive these Newsletters because a couple of people CAN'T remember subscribing. It is my opinion that a couple of people are WAY over-reacting here. The sky really isn't falling. The earth is still rotating on it's axis. ScubaBoard has and is playing by the rules in an ethical manner.

 

[The Chairman]

I file any such 'newsletters' with anti-spam organizations, who also regard it as spam.

Funny, but you had selected to RECEIVE the newsletter in your profile. I have turned it off for you now.

Why do some people assign mal intent to others all the time? They are quick to point fingers, cry foul and refuse to accept even a modicum of personal responsibility. I doubt that he will go back to the places he reported ScubaBoard to and say "My fault! I was subscribed after all!" Sorry to sound snarky, but this kind of undeserved criticism is just plain tiring. I don't understand getting all riled up over this when we have gone through such efforts to follow the rules and have made getting our Newsletters "opt in".

 

[mikemill]

NetDoc,

Perhaps if you fully communicated we wouldn't be upset. I asked back in post #12 if the newsletter setting was used or not and you never said it was. Since mine was off when I looked and I am turn off that option on most forums I go to it is reasonable to conclude you ignored that option.

Given the above (that the option was used for the first round) then the newsletter was unsolicited. You sent it to many people which makes it bulk. Since it was both unsolicited and bulk it would be spam.

Now I'm glad you are using the option for the future ones. Since the option defaults to on for most forums (can't say for certain if it is true here or not) perhaps you could remind people (via the in forum announcement) to check the setting.

Let me be clear: I don't have a problem with you doing the newsletters. I can see where some people might want them. The only problem I have is with you sending out unsolicited bulk emails. I have a bigger issue with how you handle criticism of it.

I have a minor issue with the lack of transparency of how you are using our data. Like how both the scubaboardnews.com and enews.me domains are registered to the same person who registered the TDI/SDI domain. Add in the fact that the newsletter contained a TDI/SDI ad and the relationship makes me nervous as the scubaboardnews.com is located on the same network as the TDI/SDI site.

I'm done. Be forewarned though, I'm not the only one who is upset by it and if you proceed as planned you run a good chance of ending up on some spam lists.

 

[The Chairman]

Let me be clear:

No, let me be clear: If you have opted in for the newsletter you will get it. If you haven't opted in, then you won't get it. We are not going to unilaterally set that switch to "off" for the entire board because you are upset.

We ask people when they sign up IF they want it. Blaming us for having it selected AND receiving the newsletter is just silly. Much ado about nothing.

 

[bleeb]

We won't be sending to anyone who has not yet ALREADY opted in to the Newsletter. That's how the names are pulled. IF you have opted in to receiving Newsletters AND you have joined one of the professional user groups, you can EXPECT to get the ScubaBoard Pro Newsletter.

Someone please explain to me how this can be considered SPAM.

If it works the way you're saying in this latest post, I agree it's not spam. Your previous postings said the newsletters would be sent to "anyone...who claims to be a Scuba Professional" and later used the term "opting out", which usually implies people could opt out if they don't want it. That's spam, and subsequent use of the pro-spammer term 'opt out' in a separate posting reinforced the impression. Thankfully, you've now clarified that's not what was intended, and your intent that ScubaBoard remain a responsible and non-abusive service is appreciated. I'm not a scuba professional so in principle what was described before shouldn't have affected me, but I'd be concerned about any organization with my e-mail address that treated any of its other members like that. Most people don't expect organizations which carry out such abuses to continue to restrict their misdeeds to only one segment of the user database.

One suggestion for the future is not to be so terse when making policy statements like this. If the earlier comments had been clearer and not so glib, they wouldn't have caused so much concern.