September 2009
66 posts
New York Times: Two-Thirds of Americans Object to... →
“About two-thirds of Americans object to online tracking by advertisers — and that number rises once they learn the different ways marketers are following their online movements….”
In other words: once they find out about it, they hate it. Why is that a surprise?
AFP: Bing ads to warn of online scams →
“Targeted in the campaign are key words related to searches for information about foreclosure rescue offers; promises to fix credit problems, and “lottery scams” in which people are told they’ve won prizes but must pay to collect.”
DarkReading: Conficker Showdown: No End In Sight →
“…the Conficker worm just won’t go away. Its bot count has remained steady at around 6 million machines since this summer. And no one really knows what its operators have in store for all of that firepower.”
Dark Reading: Dutch ISPs Sign Anti-Botnet Treaty →
“…information sharing will lead to better coverage of the issues and a faster response time, quarantine will ensure that infected computers no longer participate in criminal activity or infect others, and, most importantly, the ISPs will take responsibility to notify their victimized users so they can take action.”
The Afterword: Mitch Joel on The Cluetrain... →
“It’s pretty incredible to read The Cluetrain Manifesto today because it’s just as moving and insightful as it was back in the day. If you’re thinking about going into any form of business – not just one that relies on technology (although which business doesn’t?) – you must read The Cluetrain Manifesto.”
Consumerist: PowerPointing In The Den Of Whores →
“About a year and a half ago, I was got invited down to Miami to give a powerpoint to a bunch of marketers about how internet-empowered consumers were going to destroy their companies and force them to do business better. …Late into the evening, after everyone was thoroughly lubricated and enjoying their free drinks around one of those fancy hotel pools that line Ocean Drive, my new...
Lauren Price on CircleID: An Authenticated... →
Lauren explains, in near-layman terms, why DNSSEC is important.
Washington Post Security Fix: Cyber Gangs Hit... →
“Organized cyber thieves that have stolen millions from corporations and schools over the past few months recently defrauded several health care providers, including a number of non-profit organizations that cater to the disabled and the uninsured.”
Voice of San Diego: Fighting Botnets with Doc... →
“The threats, both to national security and personal security, are real, Savage says. And he has become convinced those responsible for protecting against the threats are going about it in the wrong way.”
digiday: Nielsen Finds A Hung Jury On Social Email →
“For those who think email will fall to the inexorable tide of social media, think again. …Nielsen’s data shows that social media use may actually lead to more email consumption among some customer segments.”
CBL: How not to use a DNSBL →
“All too frequently we get complaints about people not being able to send email through their own mail servers because they are allegedly blocked by the CBL. …This generally means that the administrator of the mail server or other service has either deliberately or mistakenly used the CBL contrary to our terms and conditions. This sort of situation isn’t limited to the...
The Onion: Pepsi To Cease Advertising →
“Frankly, it just feels sort of weird and desperate to put all this energy into telling people what to drink. If they don’t like it, then they don’t like it.”
MediaPost: Judge Orders Google To Deactivate... →
“In keeping with its privacy policy, Google told the bank it would have to get a court order to obtain such data. The bank then filed papers asking a court to order Google to disclose the information and deactivate the account.”
Larry Downes: The Persistent Myths of Identity... →
“Identity theft is real, but for those who have been victims of it, generally the loss of money is the least of its damage…. Restoring credit history and credit scores is where the real crimes take place, and the perpetrators are often the consumer’s own financial services providers.”
Office of the Privacy Commissioner: There are... →
“This week, we are releasing a research paper that examines the privacy protections available on social networks popular with Canadians: Facebook, Linkedin, Livejournal, MySpace, Hi5 and Skyrock.”
Return Path: Deliverability Emergencies from the... →
Fast Company: Twitter's Investors Missed the... →
“Cluetrain’s co-authors don’t profess to know whether $1 billion is a fair value for Twitter. But they wonder if investors understand that Cluetrain’s core thesis isn’t a reversible equation. Conversations aren’t markets.”
New York Times: U.P.S. to Begin Testing Direct... →
“The marketing materials will come inside small boxes labeled Direct to Door Paks, and will be delivered to customers along with merchandise they actually ordered.”
The article does not mention whether it will be possible to opt out, or even to return the package.
Return Path: Political Deliverability is Personal →
“It wasn’t anything specific to this organization, whose practices are better than average; these wealthy donors now refuse to share their email address with any organization.”
Threat Level: Bank Sends Sensitive E-mail to Wrong... →
“…in August a customer of the Rocky Mountain Bank asked a bank employee to send certain loan statements to a representative of the customer. The employee, however, inadvertently sent the e-mail to the wrong Gmail address. Additionally, the employee had attached a sensitive file to the e-mail that should not have been sent at all.”
Consumerist: Direct Marketing Association's Opt... →
“Surprise! It turns out the DMA doesn’t really care so much about whether or not you want to be taken off any mailing lists, and they have a rotten website and poor security protocols to prove it.”
Schott’s Vocab: Email Apnea →
“Holding one’s breath unconsciously while reading an email.”
TechLaw: California Privacy Law Not Preempted by... →
“Yesterday…a California intermediate appellate court ruled that the CAN-SPAM Act does not preempt a cause of action alleging that [a California privacy law] was violated when a merchant (Pottery Barn, in this case) asked for and received the plaintiff’s e-mail address during the course of a credit card transaction.”
The Local: Court rules against spammers →
“A Munich court has ruled that sending so-called spam emails is illegal [in Germany] without the prior approval of the recipient.”
Security Watch: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective... →
“What distinguishes the truly effective malware from the great unwashed malware masses?”
Wendy Seltzer: The Freedom to Innovate Without... →
“Yes, road rules constrain some innovation at the core — you can’t build a public road with braid-like traffic patterns where cars freely weave in and out in both directions, or with yellow stop signs and green “yield,” but you can still improve the pavement or road reflectors. The added predictability of a standard interface enables other more significant innovation at the edges — the...
All Spammed Up: Behind the Curtain of an Affiliate... →
“The first step towards profit for a spammer is email delivery. With many businesses and home users protected by anti-spam systems, a spammer needs to either blast out so much junk email that they eventually find an unprotected email address, or they need to craft their email such that it passes through a spam filter undetected.”
Technology Liberation Front: Skype, Child Safety &... →
“…since the school and the author are 1000 miles apart, the author suggested using the video-chat service Skype. The teacher said no — not unless he could come up with a way the kids could see HIM, but not vice versa.”
New York Times: Junk Fax Sent to US Secret Service... →
“The case began four years ago, when the U.S. Secret Service office in Wichita got an unsolicited fax from the Florida company saying it had buyers interested in purchasing the business.”
Seth's Blog: Friction →
“The friction that slows down sending email to everyone all the time is the cost of all the people you’ll lose. You might lose them because they unsubscribe, or more likely, you’ll train them to ignore you. Worse still, you might just make them annoyed enough to badmouth you.”
Seth goes on to badmouth drugstore.com.
Why don’t more marketers call out mistakes made by...
MediaPost: AOL Changes Course, Allows All Users To... →
“AOL began inserting ads in the email footers more than three years ago. In April of 2008, the company allowed paying subscribers to opt out of the ads, but didn’t proactively reach out to members to inform them they could do so.”
Security Watch: Have They Really Uncovered a Linux... →
Network World: Domain-name abuse proliferates;... →
“Criminals are amassing domain names by registering them under phony information, paying with stolen credit cards or hard-to-trace digital currencies like eGold, and breaking into legitimate domain-name accounts. To add to the problem of domain-name abuse, some rogue registrars often look the other way as the money rolls in.”
Seth's Blog: Taking the time to teach →
“What we do in the long run, over time, drip by drip, affects the market so much more than an angry reaction or urgent event.”
MediaPost: Warning: Blasting May Be Harmful to... →
“If we want to help the email marketing industry continue to grow in channel recognition, consumer value and ROI, we need to change the words we use to describe what we do.”
“Channel recognition” happens when your boss realizes how important your job is..”consumer value” refers to whether the consumer hates you or not…ROI = Return On Investment = taking...
Reuters: Pigeon transfers data faster than South... →
“A South African information technology company…proved it was faster for them to transmit data with a carrier pigeon than to send it using Telkom, the country’s leading internet service provider.”
Live Granades: Hobbit 419 →
“Dear MR BAGGINS, Fellow Conspirator,
I am Thorin Oakenshield, descendant of Thrain the Old and grandson of Thror who was King under the Mountain. I am writing you to discuss our plans, our ways, means, policy and devices for rescuing our treasure from the dragon Smaug.”
iTnews.com.au: ISPs asked to cut off... →
In Australia, “The Internet Industry Association (IIA) has drafted a new code of conduct that suggests Internet Service Providers (ISPs) contact, and in some cases disconnect, customers that have malware-infected computers.”
PC World: Drudge, Other Sites Flooded With... →
“The trouble started on Saturday, when the criminals somehow placed the malicious ads on networks managed by Google’s DoubleClick, as well as two others: YieldManager and ValueClick’s Fastclick network….”
Spam masquerading as ads. What will they think of next?
ClickZ: Authentication Matters in B2B E-Mail... →
“Most marketers don’t authenticate because it’s not mandatory. Yet authentication may be actually more useful for marketers trying to reach the corporate inbox.”
The Onion: Nigerian Officials Try To Block... →
“Because the Nigerian government’s vast oil wealth is always generously and transparently passed down to its grateful citizens, you can see why the information minister would chafe at a film that portrays Nigerians as corrupt thugs.”
Salon: Is the Internet melting our brains? →
“…Facebook is ruining our social relationships; Google is making us dumber; texting is destroying the English language as we know it. We’re facing a crisis, one that could very well corrode the way humans have communicated since we first evolved from apes.”
omg? stfu, n00b! twita.
Seth's Blog: Righteous indignation →
“This is a default response for many people—irked customers, angry bosses, disappointed colleagues.”
Charlie's Diary: Goodwill →
“…it seems to me that many of the annoyances of everyday life (outsourced call centres, intrusive ads in inappropriate places, and so on) spring from a fundamental failure to understand the importance of goodwill in businesses that live or die by repeat custom.”
A VC: Don't Forget About Email →
“If you are building a web service, you should most certainly build regular email communication with your users/members as one of the key features of your service. There are a few things to be aware of though.”
Al Iverson's Spam Resource: You Can't Buy an... →
“…I’ve dealt with various companies buying other companies before, and they tend to assume that when they buy the assets of some other company, including its email list, that suddenly they now have permission to send to that list. It’s great to see the lawsuit set the record straight on that….”
Scientific American: A Robot Impersonator Opens a... →
“Apparently an Internet bot stole my identity and used it to set up a blog and post spam under my name—with entries, at times, supposedly postmarked from the future. Quick, where’s Philip K. Dick when you need him?”
The Big Money: For the Love of God, I Don’t Want... →
“Do sites have a responsibility not to offer their readers dangerous content shipped in from outside? I say yes. But they still have to make money, and if this is what the ad networks are serving them, how much choice do they really have?”
Banner ad networks, welcome to the world of spam.
PogoWasRight.org: Pitney Bowes pays $2.9M to... →
“When you buy a client list as part of buyng a firm’s assets, do you have an established business relationship with the clients that allows you to fax them? The issue just cost Pitney Bowes $2.9M to settle….”