Tuesday, June 15, 2004
Spammed By Pocket Gear
Posted by Ed Hansberry in "THOUGHT" @ 12:00 PM
I have been a HUGE proponent of Peanut Press, which became Palm Digital Media and most recently eReader.com under the ownership of Palm Gear, which is all wrapped up with PowerByHand, and that includes Pocket Gear.
My email address is now in all of their databases as a result of the merger and they have taken it on themselves to email me and probably thousands of other customers with their latest deals. :evil: I have never, to my knowledge, purchased from Pocket Gear before - no record exists in Microsoft Money for them and I have no account info set up in eWallet either. They know I have a Pocket PC because my eReader account has "Pocket PC" as my preference. Strangely enough, they didn't pick up my notification preference which is set to "None." That means, no unsolicited email for those in PowerByHand's marketing department.
:spam:
Of course, they don't mean to spam me. :roll: "You are a valued PocketGear.com customer. Our intention is never to send SPAM to you through e-mail. Our goal is to pass along valuable discounts and share quality applications with our customers." Well, hey. Those guys pitching inexpensive Viagra or ultra-low home mortage rates aren't spamming either. Those are "valuable discounts" too, right?
Free clue PowerByHand - passing along "valuable discounts" and "sharing quality applications" unsolicited to your customer base is the definition of spam! And the sad thing is, it works. Enough people will click on the links and buy a few apps that will make the campaign a success, encouraging them to do it again.
It isn't like they didn't have an opportunity let me know of the relationship with Pocket Gear and eReader.com. I am subscribed to two eReader newsletters and they could have put an innocuous paragraph in there about these valuable discounts with their partner, but that probably wouldn't have generated the hits they were looking for. I would have been inclined to click on such a link to browse. When I find a company I like, I try to give them as much business as possible, both in the real world and on the internet. Spam like this though sends me running into the hands of their competitors when it comes to software purchases for my Pocket PC.
My email address is now in all of their databases as a result of the merger and they have taken it on themselves to email me and probably thousands of other customers with their latest deals. :evil: I have never, to my knowledge, purchased from Pocket Gear before - no record exists in Microsoft Money for them and I have no account info set up in eWallet either. They know I have a Pocket PC because my eReader account has "Pocket PC" as my preference. Strangely enough, they didn't pick up my notification preference which is set to "None." That means, no unsolicited email for those in PowerByHand's marketing department.
:spam:
Of course, they don't mean to spam me. :roll: "You are a valued PocketGear.com customer. Our intention is never to send SPAM to you through e-mail. Our goal is to pass along valuable discounts and share quality applications with our customers." Well, hey. Those guys pitching inexpensive Viagra or ultra-low home mortage rates aren't spamming either. Those are "valuable discounts" too, right?
Free clue PowerByHand - passing along "valuable discounts" and "sharing quality applications" unsolicited to your customer base is the definition of spam! And the sad thing is, it works. Enough people will click on the links and buy a few apps that will make the campaign a success, encouraging them to do it again.
It isn't like they didn't have an opportunity let me know of the relationship with Pocket Gear and eReader.com. I am subscribed to two eReader newsletters and they could have put an innocuous paragraph in there about these valuable discounts with their partner, but that probably wouldn't have generated the hits they were looking for. I would have been inclined to click on such a link to browse. When I find a company I like, I try to give them as much business as possible, both in the real world and on the internet. Spam like this though sends me running into the hands of their competitors when it comes to software purchases for my Pocket PC.
