Trance has a question for the Consumerist hive mind: Are you receiving more promotional e-mails than you were, say, a year ago? Not spam, but actual retailers that you want to hear from when they have a sale. Trance doesn’t have statistics for this, but thinks that she’s receiving more messages this year than last year, and has had to unsubscribe. [More]
Chipotle Is Hungry For More Junk Email
By July 20, 2010
Last month Chipotle put out a call for customers to forward 500,000 junk email messages to nojunk@chipotlejunk.com, pledging to donate $50,000 to charity in return. Now the maker of foil-wrapped burritos has upped the ante, asking for another half million male enhancement and fake dating site queries in order to hike up its donation to $100,000. [More]
HP And Yahoo Want To Put Ads On Your Printouts
By June 21, 2010
Google’s not the only company that wants to put ads on everything you read. HP’s new web-connected printers will let you send pages or photos directly from websites or phones and schedule recurring printouts from content partners–and the company is pilot testing a program with Yahoo’s advertising network to deliver targeted ads on those scheduled printouts. [More]
Toyota Probably Should Have Written This Spam's Subject Line More Carefully
By March 11, 2010
“Amazing Incentives For Select Toyotas That Will Not Last Long.”
Reader Maida did a spit-take when this email from a Toyota dealer offering 0% APR for 60 months landed in her inbox. Yeeks, talk about a syntactical pileup.
I Am Liberal And Employed, But Republicans And Job Sites Won't Stop Spamming Me
By March 4, 2010
In a funny blog post, Nicole goes into a rant about how she can’t stop certain organizations from spamming her no matter what she tries, name dropping Monster.com and the Republican Party in particular. [More]
Spammer Forgets To Fill Out Personalization Fields
By January 19, 2010
I got this spam recently. Looks like our spammer forgot to fill out his form fields! “Whatsup My parents are from #CSVFIELD(3)# too! Are you 100% sure you wish to get rid of this #CSVFIELD(2)#?”I love how vague and modular it is, it’s like spam madlibs! [More]
FCC Chair Spams Facebook Friends
By December 31, 2009
His account apparently compromised by a spammer’s program, FCC chair Julius Genachowski sent out a message this morning to all his Facebook friends that said, “Adam got me started making money with this.” Adam Smith perhaps? We’ll never know, as the website Julius linked to is now unavailable. [More]
New Jersey Wants To Stop Unsolicited Text Message Ads
By December 29, 2009
New Jersey isn’t content with going after unsolicited junk mail checks and credit card offers–it appears to be aiming for Least Friendly Junk Marketing State in the Union. The latest target: marketers who send out unsolicited text messages. [More]
New Jersey Wants Marketers To Stop Mailing Unsolicited Checks
By November 30, 2009
Assemblyman Paul Moriarty wants direct mail marketers to stop sending out those “free money!” checks that auto-enroll you in expensive programs when you deposit them, while a senator has introduced a similar measure. “Instead of relying on tricks, companies looking to sell their services in New Jersey should go back to the old-fashioned way: earning consumers’ trust,” said Moriarty. [More]
T-Mobile Surprise Porn Not An Isolated Incident
By November 4, 2009
After we posted yesterday about a T-Mobile customer being greeted by pictures of topless women when he logged into his account to pay his bill, some of you asked, “What’s the problem?” Several readers’ stories answer that question. (Censored but not exactly tasteful pictures inside.) UPDATE: T-Mobile response inside.
Class Action Lawsuit Filed Against Payless Shoesource For Text Message Spamming
By November 4, 2009
Peter, who wrote in last month to complain about being text-spammed by Payless Shoesource on his phone, wasn’t the only customer they annoyed. A man in California has filed a class action lawsuit against the shoe company and Voice & Mobile Broadcast Corporation, which is the marketing company it hired to run the campaign.
Facebook Sues Spammer; Wins $711 Million
By October 31, 2009
Facebook won $711 million in a lawsuit against a notorious spammer. Don’t cheer too hard, though. The same spampresario owes MySpace $234 million for the same thing.
Customer Gets Payless To Compensate Him For Text Message Spam
By October 23, 2009
Peter was pretty frustrated when Payless Shoesource ignored his two opt-out texts and continued to pester him with SMS spam. His complained via email and got taken off their list, but then he decided to see if he could get back the money those texts cost him.
Now Report Spammers On Twitter With A Single Click
By October 13, 2009
It used to be that when you were followed by a spammer on Twitter, you had to go report them by sending a direct message to Twitter’s official spam account. Now they’ve updated their reporting system, so all it takes is a single click. Have fun turning in the bots!
Comcast To Warn You If Your Zombie Computer Is Secretly Spamming People
By October 9, 2009
Where does spam come from? Well, there are these things called botnets. They’re networks of hijacked computers that secretly do the bidding of their masters. Often, they send out spam. Comcast plans to offer an automated service that will inform you, within your browser, if your computer is behaving as if it has been compromised by malware.
10 Extinct Twitter-Types Thanks To New Terms Of Service
By September 16, 2009
Instead of cranking out cumbersome terms of service Magna Cartas that only lawyers will actually read, Twitter should follow the lead of Mashable and just come out and say what types of users it’s attempting to get rid of.
Watch Out For Pointless Self-Replicating Spam Facebook Application
By August 21, 2009
Watch out for “[A friend] commented on a photo of you” notifications on Facebook. If you click on the notification and it asks you to install an application called “Your Photos,” RUN AWAY. Your friend didn’t comment on any photos of you, and the application exists to coax people to click on banner ads.
