An open letter to any company advertising through sys-con.com
To whom it may concern,
As an unfortunate by-product of my having once expressed some kind of interest in the Java Developers Journal, I seem to have been subscribed to a series of commercial messages delivered via sys-con.com. While these messages come with unsubscribe requests, reports from others show that following them does nothing worthwhile.
I have absolutely no hesitation marking such messages as spam.
Like many people these days, I use an adaptive spam filter. Thus, my marking of your email as spam automatically adds your company and product names to a list of indicators that a message may be spam. This means that in the future, if I receive useful information about your company or product, there is a significant chance it will be relagated to my junk-mail folder and never read.
In addition, I have a significant personal dislike of unsolicited commercial email, and am naturally prejudiced against companies I see advertised in them. By advertising in the unsolicited commercial emails redistributed by Sys-Con, you are reducing the chance I will look favourably on your product.
The existence of previous communications between me and sys-con.com is irrelevant. The possibility that I may have mistakenly forgotten to un-check the "send me related emails" button on some web-form is also irrelevant. Sys-con.com are clearly abusing any alleged "permission" they may have received to market goods to me.
I sincerely doubt I am the only person affected by this. I suggest that in the future you are more selective about who you advertise with.
Yours Sincerely,
Charles Miller
It's funny you brought this up, in a timing sort of way. I was just randomly browsing around amazon.ca, and saw this book. The title alone, is enough to cause a modicum of fear in my poor little heart.
I am not a number! I am a free spam! Or something.
Okay, so I didn't see the 'URLs turn into links' thing, and it therefore stripped my HTML because I forgot about that too. Oops. It's age, it crept up and made me retarded.
http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0786887176/ref=br_lf_b_5/701-9868825-9515563
One of the books on my "things to read" shelf is Max Barry's "Jennifer Government" The book starts with a guy working for Nike marketing being asked to kill some people for their shoes, to make the shoes seem more desireable.
Interestingly enough, Jennifer Government itself is a good example of viral marketing that you, yourself took part in. The author also set up the "NationStates" web-based game, which was a very effective marketing tool for that book. I certainly wouldn't have heard of the book otherwise.
Heh, yeah. There's probably nothing IN the book. I just did his job for him. :>
Please give us a list of these companies so we can ignore them too. Companies that send spam should go out of business. Period.
Somehow I seem to have got off the sys-CONNED lists, don't ask me how I just got so pissed off be their crap I went a hunting and tried to take my name off anything and everything on the site, sent foul emails, whatever. Anyway, I haven't recieved anything from them for ages (fingers crossed). I still hate them though.
[anonymous comment deleted - Charles]
I stopped getting spam from sys-con for several months, but today it is back again. Now there is a disclaimer in the fine print at the bottom, stating that the message is NOT spam because it conforms to the requirements of the anti-spam bill recently passed by Congress.
Since it is clear that unsubscribing from sys-con mailing lists has no effect whatsoever, perhaps the only way to stop it is by personal request to the folks in their marketing department. For anyone who wishes to make such a request, I supply the following addresses: carmen@sys-con.com is the Senior VP of Sales & Marketing, miles@sys-con.com is the VP of Sales & Marketing, and megan@sys-con.com is the Director of Sales & Marketing. It might be nice to cc: the CEO at fuat@sys-con.com. Also feel free to send unsolicited commercial email to those folks, since they clearly love it.... just make sure you comply with federal law.
I've been getting a lot of spam from them. I sent a nice email to
Beth Jones
SYS-CON Advertising
201-802-3028 phone
201-802-9601 fax
beth@sys-con.com
asking to be removed. It was ignored.
Yesterday I called because I got a spam from
Robyn Forma
Advertising Director
SYS-CON Media, Inc.(robyn@sys-con.com)
Phone:201-802-3022
and she promised that I would be removed from their mailing list.
Got another spam today from
Carmen Gonzalez
Senior VP of Marketing & Sales
SYS-CON Media
201-802-3021 Fax# 201-782-9650
e-mail carmen@sys-con.com
I called her up and she was so rude and nasty and refused to remove me from the spam list.
The numbers indicated are direct lines and when they are not there their voice mails pick-up. Not that calling them is going to get you removed but you can let them know how you feel.
The phone and fax numbers as well as the emails were all on the spams that they sent me.
I've been getting a lot of spam from them. I sent a nice email to
Beth Jones
SYS-CON Advertising
201-802-3028 phone
201-802-9601 fax
beth@sys-con.com
asking to be removed. It was ignored.
Yesterday I called because I got a spam from
Robyn Forma
Advertising Director
SYS-CON Media, Inc.(robyn@sys-con.com)
Phone:201-802-3022
and she promised that I would be removed from their mailing list.
Got another spam today from
Carmen Gonzalez
Senior VP of Marketing & Sales
SYS-CON Media
201-802-3021 Fax# 201-782-9650
e-mail carmen@sys-con.com
I called her up and she was so rude and nasty and refused to remove me from the spam list.
The numbers indicated are direct lines and when they are not there their voice mails pick-up. Not that calling them is going to get you removed but you can let them know how you feel.
The phone and fax numbers as well as the emails were all on the spams that they sent me.
The addresses like "carmen@sys-con.com" are bogus accounts they set up to make it easier to discard the hundreds of complaints that they receive. Internally, sys-con email addresses are of the form cgonzalez@sys-con.com, rforma@sys-con.com, bjones@sys-con.com, fkircaali@sys-con.com, etc. Any comments about their spam should go to those latter addresses if you expect them to be received. Calling them on the phone is not a bad idea either.