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08-06-2008, 08:01 PM #1Junior Guru Wannabe
- Join Date
- Sep 2006
- Location
- Chicago, Illinois, USA
- Posts
- 72
Register.com "Marketing Emails" (Spam)
Recently I had some dealings with Register.com for a friend of mine who needed to gain access to the account of a deceased family member in order to manage the web site for her company. She was getting nowhere with them and found their support staff to be less than helpful in the retrieval of her domain name and account.
So she called me up, knowing I work in the industry, and asked me to see if I could get any information out of Register which might aid in the retrieval of her web site. I obliged, and opened up a live support chat with Register seeking information. After a little bit of prying--it seems this is kind of an odd request--the technician told me that they needed to send me an email with the information from the correct department, and couldn't give me an ETA, just "as soon as possible."
Now, having worked in the industry for years, to me this might as well have meant "we'll have an email to you sometime in the next year or so." Surprisingly it took only a day and a half and I got all of the information I needed, and my friend is on her way to retrieving her account.
Success, right? Not entirely.
This afternoon I wake up to find an email from Register.com, Inc. in my inbox with the subject "Get a FREE domain from Register.com." Now, let me put this into perspective. I have the last couple years of my email account easily accessible. A search for Register.com turned up several marketing emails (which I must not have noticed prior to this and just thought of it as normal stuff I get), and the correspondence with them regarding the retrieval of my friend's domain. All of the marketing emails for Register have arrived in my inbox since I contacted them regarding the issue.
This leads me to believe that I was only just recently added to their list, say, I don't know, two weeks ago maybe?
So apparently they think it's funny to sign me up for their marketing email list simply for talking to their support staff. I can find no clear statement on their web site, anywhere, that says collecting my email for support purposes earns me the privilege of receiving this junk mail from them. I certainly never checked a box anywhere saying "yes, send me this crap!"
While they do offer an unsubscribe button (and I certainly have done so now), I'm still extremely unhappy about this incident and I feel as if this is kind of (ok, it is) a shady way to market your product to anybody.
So now through this little trick, I'd like to say that Register.com has lost whatever potential they had for my business in the future, and I would simply like to say that you may take this into consideration when contacting them regarding anything, ever.
If someone can find damning evidence (preferably in a clear statement where someone would read it) saying that I opted in to receive this anywhere on their site, I will happily retract this statement, otherwise, their emails to me regarding their product remain unsolicited and therefore, spam.
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08-06-2008, 08:47 PM #2Web Hosting Industry Expert
- Join Date
- Dec 2007
- Location
- Indiana, USA
- Posts
- 19,196
As long as the unsubscription works (and it doesn't merely verify that you are receiving their e-mails) I'd not worry too much about it myself.
The spam that I hate is the random garbage from spoofed e-mails with forged headers and links to porn site affiliate links. Legitimate marketing emails for legitimate businesses don't bother me near as much unless they refuse to stop sending them to me upon request.
Although I do understand your reasoning, it's not something I share.█ Michael Denney - MDDHosting.com - Proudly hosting more than 37,700 websites since 2007.
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08-06-2008, 09:35 PM #3Aspiring Evangelist
- Join Date
- Oct 2005
- Posts
- 397
Spam is spam, they can't just take any email they get from an inquiry and then add it to mailing list. I say, report them to spamcop.
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08-06-2008, 09:37 PM #4Web Hosting Industry Expert
- Join Date
- Dec 2007
- Location
- Indiana, USA
- Posts
- 19,196
Actually... They *can* it's just not a wise marketing practice. Reporting them to spamcop will only generate a spam report that gets sent to them and will likely do absolutely nothing to stop this practice but more power to you Personally I love spamcop but I don't think it will do any good in this case.
█ Michael Denney - MDDHosting.com - Proudly hosting more than 37,700 websites since 2007.
█ Ultra-Fast Cloud Shared and Pay-By-Use Reseller Hosting Powered by LiteSpeed!
█ cPanel • Free SSL • 100% Uptime SLA • 24/7 Support
█ Class-leading support that responds in minutes, not days.
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08-07-2008, 04:14 AM #5Web Hosting Guru
- Join Date
- Jul 2008
- Posts
- 294
Today, I have received such a email, I do not know that how do they know my email, and i have no connection with register.com, but to me personally, this is not spam, because the contents of the message is true, no deception, I could accept.