Condé Nast marketing department, are you on crack? Have you put some trinket from “The Hills” in charge of your mail server? Justin has emailed you repeatedly to tell you to stop spamming him. His marketing preferences on your site show a vast field of “No” for every single title on your list. And yet he’s received 16 emails since his last request—almost three a month. You should know better—or, as Justin puts it, “This isn’t some Nigerian guy trying to make my penis larger or send me money, this is a company here, in the United States, that I know should be held accountable.”
Justin even complained to the FCC, but got back a form response asking him to just complain some more. So now he’s asking the Consumerist readership for advice. How do you get Condé Nast to stop spamming? As he writes at the end, what he wants to know is how to “get them to stop, in accordance with the law, not just sidestep the problem.”
A long, long time ago, in a galaxy pretty close to where I am, I was once subscribed to Cargo Magazine, kind of a mens version of Vogue. Had a lot of gadgets, nice clothes, basically the Gawker empire, but in print.
Sadly, they canceled the magazine about 2 years into publication, and remaining issues on subscriptions were switched to GQ magazine. After my subscription ended, I didn’t renew, but every now and then, would receive an email from them about offerings, ect. Just basic spam.
Attached is an email dated October 11, 2007, stating that I do not wish to receive ANY emails from ANY CondeNast Publication. Since then, I have received 16! emails from them, in direct violation of their own privacy policy. I have forwarded the email to their privacy administrator, have requested for them to stop sending me emails, everything short of an EECB. This isn’t some Nigerian guy trying to make my penis larger or send me money, this is a company here, in the United States, that I know should be held accountable.
So I called them out in violation of CANSPAM, and sent my confirmation of removal, and copies of the emails sent. I’ve used the FTC website, forwarded the emails directly, filled out forms, but to no avail. Here is the response from the FTC:
March 24, 2008
Justin XXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX, FL XXXXXX
Re: FTC Ref. No. XXXXXX
Dear Justin XXX:
Thank you for contacting the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) regarding your receipt of unwanted unsolicited commercial email (commonly referred to as “UCE” or “spam”).
The strong public outcry against spam prompted Congress to pass the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act of 2003 (“CAN-SPAM” or the “CAN-SPAM Act”). The CAN-SPAM Act does not prohibit the sending of commercial email, it merely sets forth requirements for sending commercial email. CAN-SPAM gives consumers the right to ask companies to stop sending them commercial email, establishes requirements for commercial email messages, and lays out penalties for the people who send violative messages. The law’s requirements, which took effect on January 1, 2004, cover email whose primary purpose is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service, including content on a Web site operated for a commercial purpose.
The FTC asks that you send a copy of any unwanted or deceptive email messages to spam@uce.gov. (Please be sure to include the full email header when forwarding your spam – it is the header information that makes it possible for consumer protection agencies to follow up on your complaint.) The FTC uses the spam stored in this database to pursue law enforcement actions against people who send deceptive spam email. In addition, be sure to let the FTC know if a “remove me” request is not honored. If you want to complain about a removal link that doesn’t work or not being able to unsubscribe from a list, you can fill out the FTC’s online complaint form at http://www.ftc.gov. Your complaint will be added to the FTC’s Consumer Sentinel database and made available to hundreds of law enforcement and consumer protection agencies.
Unfortunately, right now, there is no way to stop receiving spam, just as there is no way to stop receiving junk mail at your home. But there are steps you can take to help minimize the amount of spam you receive. Enclosed please find a FTC Consumer Alert with tips on what you can do to help reduce the amount of spam you receive.
I hope you find the above information helpful in addressing this issue.
Sincerely yours,
Consumer Response CenterBig help that was, considering that this is their jurisdiction. They aren’t even “taking it seriously”. Violation of CANSPAM is an $11,000 fine, so 16 emails can add up pretty quickly.
So, my question, to your and the readers of the Consumerist, is how to make them stop sending me emails. I know it’s just easier to automatically have them be deleted, mark them as spam, ect., but the importance is to get them to stop, in accordance with the law, not just sidestep the problem.
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Just curious about one thing: is it possible that you originally subscribed with another e-mail address, which automatically forwards to your current inbox (such as gmail, where many users have multiple accounts forwarding to the same box, but treat them as one)? If so, you may simply be adjusting preferences for the wrong address. If this is not the case, mark as spam. Some online marketer/web designer probably just has no idea what they’re doing.
Correction: you may find a few techies on these floors, but they are not likely to have the resources available to help out. I’m a huge fan of letter bombs, but it’s more efficient if you direct them to the department that can effectively address the issue.
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Cracker Barrel did the same to me, for years, despite clicking removal links, calling them three times… each time I was assured my email was removed, each time I got another promotional email.
Now, they’re simply routed straight to delete, so I do not have to be aware they have ever arrived. The company has permanently lost my business, and I figure that is a bigger hit to them (with no effort on my part) than trying to struggle through the laughable anti-spam legislation to actually get them to comply with the law and with their own privacy policies.
print them all out, put them in a box and ship it back to them using one of their subscription cards. Include a nice letter asking them to stop. also, include one of your own turds in the middle of the stack.
I had the same problem with the Dallas Cowboys online organization.
Only it wasn’t me who signed up – there’s some dumbass in the midwest who keeps using my e-mail address for things.
I e-mailed them, called them, they couldn’t figure out why I still get e-mail from them.
So I just used “Report Spam” in Gmail, and now I never see it again.
For a quick second, I thought I was on the Jezebel blog.
@wesrubix: I couldn’t have said it better myself. Set up a rule in your mail client to forward back all spam you get from them to their Privacy Policy Coordinator!
Privacy_administration@advancemags.com
@Consumer007: I have had two rules set up to automatically delete email from anything at “cdsfulfillment.com” or “condenastpubs.com” but they just sent me an email from a new address “portfoliomag.net”.
How many email addresses are they going to make? They must be doing this on purpose.
Hi everyone. My name is Robert Schroko and I am the VP of Database
Marketing responsible for Privacy Administration for Conde Nast
Publications. I wanted to address this posting and the comments in
order to assure you that we’re very concerned about the complaints that
have been raised.
Conde Nast Publications is sensitive to our customers’ privacy
preferences and takes opt-outs seriously. Conde Nast’s policy is to
email only those individuals for whom we have permission to do so.
Additionally, Conde Nast has a policy of asking for email permissions on
all touch points where we interact with our customers. We provide up to
3 options to opt-out in every commercial e-mail message we send: 1) an
unsubscribe link; 2) the email address of our Privacy Administrator
(privacy_administrator@advancemags.com); and 3) our physical address
where an individual can send a postal letter requesting to unsubscribe.
We wish to apologize to Justin for the inconvenience this has caused,
and would like to investigate fully to find out what went wrong. We
can’t do so, however, without knowing the e-mail address he is
complaining about. If an error caused these unsubscribe methods to
break down and led to Justin’s troubles, we want to do everything we can
to fix it.
Justin, if you would like to follow-up about this with us, please contact me
directly at RSCHRO@condenast.com.
Thank you,
Robert Schroko
VP of Database Marketing
Conde Nast Publications
@CondeNast: The email for the Privacy Administrator is “privacy_administration@advancemags.com” but nice try. Also, your unsubscribe links rarely work. And when they do, it says that I’m already opted out. “No” for magazine events, “no” for special offers, and “no” for magazine offers yet I still receive emails. I never even opted in for your emails.
All of this, in addition to your mass junk mail (via USPS), has left a really bad image of your company in my mind. You may want to fix this problem so you don’t lose other customers.
Hey is this the same comp? If so oNo we will never be free!
Condé Nast’s Lying Tech Guy Questioned About Leaking, Spying.
The guy who runs tech security for Condé Nast has admitted lying to the FBI and lending his services to private detective Anthony Pellicano even though he knew Pellicano was tapping people’s phones.
[gawker.com]