Entertainment For Lively Minds
Disingenuous Subscription Renewals
Hands up if you like receiving junk mail... Let's count. Oh, no one. Why is it that when a product or service is purchased from a company, the supplying company assumes that this means it is OK for them to send you junk mail? And not only that, it gets better, they also assume it is OK for them to invite 3rd parties to send you junk as well?
I just renewed my Word subscription. On the final checkout screen I get the junk opt-out form shown below. Here's the problem: the customer - i.e. the person who is keeping your company alive by paying for your content - has to opt-out of junk reception. You're placing the burden on the customer to say "No don't send me annoying ads". Surely the customer is the last person you want to annoy. It's disingenuous. You know no-one wants to receive junk mail.
Notice how sneaky it is at the end. The sense is changed. The first two questions you check the boxes if you do not want to receive junk. The last question you check the box if you do want to receive junk. To me this seems like a sneaky way to get approval from the customer to send junk email without the customer noticing what they just approved.
The only decent way to do this is to assume no-one want to receive junk and only send if they explicitly opt-in.
The text of the above screenshot reads as follows...
From time to time we may also wish to send you details of special offers and promotions.
Please tick here if you do not wish to receive such offers by
- Post
- Phone
- Email
We may also pass your details to other reputable companies whose products and services may be of interest to you.
Please tick here if you do not wish to receive such offers by
- Post
- Phone
Please tick here if you wish to receive such offers by
- Email
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Yeah, it's annoying,
but everybody does it. Just means you have to take a second or two longer when filling these things out to make sure you tick/untick the right boxes.
Simonb,
I resubscribed this week myself, and I also noticed the same tick box options you described; I thought it was funny too.
You know what I think, though? I think you've probably spent a lot of time researching, writing and correcting that article; much more, possibly, than you ever would every morning by either pressing the delete button next to any unsolicited mails in your box or by adding those addresses to your blocker.
Sometimes complaining takes up a lot of time, and we need to ask ourselves if it's worth it. Does it actually make us feel better or change anything if we invent a battery of small things in life which we do just so they can be done on principle? Quite often it only makes us more hypercritical and exasperated, and proves to be a waste of a precious virtue that is very easily exhausted.
I came back to Word after a long absence due to this forum, some cracking Beatles articles, and the remarkable decision to dedicate an entire podcast to a former member of the British Army and the vital role that literature played in sustaining his emotional health during conflict; no other music magazine would do that.
We seem to throw so much of our energy at minor upsets as it is these days, which is ironic when you consider - as I did after listening to the aforementioned podcast - that most people in countries like ours live in the most peaceful, stable, socially mobile, comfortable, safe and properous time in history.
Development Hell is a business, first and foremost, and they have to make some not-immediately-cuddly decisions in order to keep their mags afloat, in an environment where larger and dirtier publishers do things like pay people to go into newsagents and hide their titles behind Woman's Weekly.
If some confusing tick boxes is the price I have to pay, then so be it.
Honestly, Simonb, move on; just enjoy the good shit while it lasts.
If having to tick
a box is the worst thing that happens to you today then you're doing alright.
Thanks for the heads up.
I like junk mail from The Word.
It's always got a little smiley snap of Mark Ellen inside... Makes my day.
That is the point though...
...people pretty much never opt in deliberately. I worked for a bank and initially their account opening form defaulted to 'no mail' and they quickly found they had no-one to market to - same problem. They switched it to default to 'yes please - send me lots of brochures' and cause the customer to actively decide for 'no'. Not sure how much customer satisfaction was impacted by that.....but it's a common problem/approach/situation.
As a bottom line, if it's easy enough to unsubscribe from the spam (like clicking a single link in the email in question), and it's not obscured or likely to be a dodgy link of some description taking you to a hostile site somewhere nasty, things should be relatively ok.
I actually had a letter from my bank this weekend...
... reminding me that I'd opted out of receiving any communications from them (other than statements etc.) and wondering if I'd changed my mind. You don't need a spade to unearth the irony in that one.
Whilst accepting the earlier point that one shouldn't get unnecessarily upset about junk mail, I loathe and despise the utter waste it engenders, and think it should be far more "policed" than it is (the mail preference service is next to useless, and IFCO appears to have no powers whatsoever.)
Standard procedure
Everyone does it. Your contact details and your agreement that they can be used are almost as valuable to the publisher as your subscription fee.
It's good business; charge the reader to subscribe, charge the advertiser to go on the page, rent out the mailing list. Three ways to win!
At least it's clear whether you need to tick or not
My particular beef is with the ones worded something like:
"Uncheck the box if you do not want to be taken off the list of exclusions from our mailing list"
or some such. I did maths at uni and I land up scratching my head for a minute or two trying to figure some of them out.