I’ve ranted this rant before. Many times over the years. But … hey, it’s my blog and I’ll rant if I want to. If you’re looking for Profound Wisdom today instead of minor babblings, I’ve got just the guy for you …
—–
You want to get on my bad side? Put me on an email list without asking.
Want to make it worse? Use open cc.
For years, when people would do this, I’d quickly tell them, “Don’t do that. Now take my name off your list.”
But I got tired of the inevitable responses, of which there were (and still are) exactly two: 1) “Your a PHONY. I thought you believed in learning the TRUTH!!!!!! You don’t DESERVE my information!!!!” or 2) Well, how else am I supposed to do it? What’s bcc? I never heard of that. If you want me to use that, you should tell me how …
So for a while, instead of going through that routine, I started directing all such mail straight into Trash. Unfortunately, that meant I’d still occasionally see it while doing mailbox maintenance.
There are two kinds of people who thrust us, all unwilling, onto open cc lists. There’s Aunt Mamie (we all have one) who sends cute cat pictures, chain letters, urban legends, and glurge about angels delivering blessings to adorable, usually fatally ill, children. The other is The Sage, who is Inspired to Bestow His (very own) Profound Wisdom Upon The Little People in the form of unsolicited commentary.
Until this afternoon the mail of one such was landing in my Trash box regularly. He was just a neocon blowhard, but every word was written as if it was THE Word. You know? He did not merely speak, he Proclaimed.
More annoying yet, he even has a pretentious email address. I won’t use his real name, but his addy calls him “JoeBlowAuthor.”
Now writers do not call themselves “author” except in rare and limited circumstances. If a publisher asks us to write a bio-blurb (yes, we frequently write our own), we’re pretty much obliged to say things like, “Claire Wolfe, author of Penguins of the Arizona Desert …”
Otherwise, forget it. We’re writers. We write. We no more go around styling ourselves Authors than film directors go around introducing themselves as auteurs.
But I digress.
A couple months ago, MrAuthor wrote something that got members of the cc list fired up and they did what people on cc lists do; they started filling up everybody else’s email boxes with flag-waving “reply alls.” (It’s a measure of this guy’s impact that it took years of being on his list before something he said finally drew that kind of reaction.)
I belatedly wrote and told HisAuthorness that open cc was Not Good, that I’d never asked to be on his list in the first place, and please take me off.
In response, he started using bcc (I admit, without whining). But kept me on the list.
I gritted my teeth and kept cleaning out the Trash.
Until this morning when the email that landed there said something to this effect: “We should nuke Iran. In fact, we should nuke all the Muslims or anybody else who gives us trouble. In fact, if we had nuked Korea and nuked Vietnam back in the day, the whole world would respect us so much now that they’d be bowing down to the the U.S. and we wouldn’t have all this trouble and it would Save The Lives of Patriotic Americans.”
I wrote back: “Take me off your mailing list.”
He wrote back: “And you (sic) email address is????”
Grrrr. I eventually got him to figure that out.
He ultimately removed my name, concluding, “Sorry to see you go as I had always thought you enjoyed reading the original views of others.”
I think that’s the polite way of saying, “Your a PHONY!” But at least the JoeBlowAuthor phase of my life is over.
Now, if I could just kill off the last of those glurge-dripping angels …
[/rant]
Nice rant! It’s extra angering because it’s intentional (adding you without your permission) by a real person.
As opposed to the Viagra spam sent to an email that has the word “girl” in it 🙂
Amen, preach it sister! 🙂
If I get one more freaking email begging me to see Obama 2016 movie, or how I have to vote for Mittens even if I don’t like him because he will appoint conservative judges, I think I am going to retch.
I’m so fed up with it I am beginning to prefer the Nigerian, lottery winner! or the “enlarge your ***” spam messages! 😉
I’ve also been getting a lot of list emails lately that: denigrate the Muslims, whitewashes “Mittens” (I like that term!), tells me I should love God and country, write to my congressperson about such-and-such, and otherwise tries to lead me into “politics for my own good” – all this from a person who should know me better, and know better than try to push me into group-think. Sheesh!
BTW, Claire, I’ve never read “Penguins of the Arizona Desert”. Where can I find that book? 🙂
Using a proxy service that allows unlimited email aliases is one way of eliminating spam. I assign a unique email address to every company I deal with online. Every listserve I subscribe to also has an alias. If an address starts to collect spam a simple click of the mouse eliminates that alias. I use several aliases for friends and family as well. Good friends have a unique address for me that flags the email as legitimate. The service I use also has a feature where I can assign a self expiring email alias for those times when I want to register on a web site but I don’t want any email from them. I just set the address to expire the following day. I get at least 100 emails on a typical day. I get about a dozen spam messages in a typical month.
Woody, I like that system. I’ve got a couple free email addresses setup as a kludge version of that, all redirecting mail to my main account. The double spam filter (one on each service) seems to be quite nearly 100% effective. Of course every time I get advertising spam I unsubscribe immediately and leave a scathing comment if a field is provided.
“I deeply regret contacting your company.
I chose to provide my contact information in order to conduct business. I weigh this choice carefully, and choose only companies which I trust. You have betrayed that trust and misappropriated my email address, using it to invade my world, steal my time and attention, and harass me with irrelevant machine generated materials designed for your profit. I do not appreciate that.”
I follow IL Tim’s path.
To individuals I usually reply:
“I certainly hope that I have been forwarded this email without your knowledge of its contents.
I find the views expressed in this email to be absolutely repugnant and those who disseminate them bereft of decency and common manners.
If you have knowingly sent me this email and agree with the views expressed therein, please remove my name from all of your contact lists, phone included, as I do not seek your further correspondence. I could not think any less of you than I do. Life is far to short to share with people harboring such repugnant views. “
Tangentially related to your aside about “author,” an idiot with the vanity plate “POET” was parked in my parking space yesterday. I felt a combination of annoyance and amusement pondering other four letter words that would better describe the driver.
Dealing with them via email is bad enough, but worse if you have to deal with them in person. A while back, I workled with a guy who asked people’s opinions just so he could tell you how wrong you are (it must be a law somewhere that every workplace has to hire two of these types-one male, one female). Conspiracy Loons can be sort of entertaining, but the One True Word Conservative/Liberal are just annoying on a good day..
Good responses as usual.
I also have multitudes of email addresses via my proxy service — and that absolutely does help diminish spam and commercial mail. When a company sells or just loses track of the email address I’ve given them (getting hacked or whatever), I can kill that addy and be bothered no more.
But the multitude of addresses actually caused trouble with MrAuthor. I had no idea which address he’d gotten hold of and he was too witless to figure it out.
As usual the advice here from you and the posters is useful. Thought I’d share some. Is it just me or is anyone else annoyed as hell that you can’t go into a big-box without being accosted by someone selling something? In my case my local Sams club has had the Direct T.V. crew pushing their overpriced “services” for about two months now. Now what I do when I meander past is look straight at them, before they can begin their pitch, and tell them that “I love Sunday Ticket and I’ve had your dish for over ten years!” This stops ’em in their tracks. Other variation of this are when the telemarketers call with weight loss scams I tell them “they told me at the V.A. I need to GAIN 30 pounds!” or “DIABETES? I have low blood sugar, is this some sick joke?” They quickly get off the phone and I’m off their list. There are also some yahoo’s who have been coming around trying to sell me and my neighbors on long term energy contracts for gas and electric. I always tell them I am house sitting for my brother and he’s out of town. I also have an ornery streak and sometimes answer the phone and talk like a mental defective to the telemarketers who don’t or won’t get it. Great fun there.
I killed my home phone so I don’t have to deal with telemousketeers.
I glare menacingly at Big Box salespeople and perfume pushers when I’m out shopping (being 6’2″ and 230lbs doesn’t hurt here), and firmly say “Not Interested”. They usually close their mouth before they get the first word out.
For those family members who spam me with urban legends, I reply-all (intentionally, in this case) with a link to the appropriate snopes.com page. They gave up.
For e-mail spam… well, let’s just say that I’ve got some good filtering, and keep my ‘real life’ and ‘online’ e-mail accounts separate.
Damn all I ever get are penis enlargment spam. I’m starting to think they surveyed my ex-girlfeiends and wives. Ohh and that poor guy from Ethiopia that needs help getting his money out. I hope someone helps him out soon, his begging is annoying.
Seriously I actually love Spam. Its how I know all is working. But the scary part is that the federal bureau of idiots would actually use unsolicited mail in a case against you. After all they have to meet a quota for the production and grooming of future terrorists which they plan to jail after they graduate from the FBI training program.
🙂
“BTW, Claire, I’ve never read “Penguins of the Arizona Desert”. Where can I find that book? :-)”
Oh, Pat. I forgot to mention. Penguins of the Arizona Desert will soon be available in all the finest bookstores in the Alpha Centauri system, several alternate universes away from here.
Maybe Penguins of the Arizona Desert should be a subtitle on the snitch booklet….just to help you capture those Alpha Centauri royalties….
I’ve used the very system Woody mentions. Unfortunately, old age requires a special journal listing all the locations and passwords, lately…….
Wait. So all those “Romney-is-more-like-Jesus-than-Obama-is” emails I have been sending are just going to your spam box? And here I thought you cared about our freedom!
CCing everyone is not just an annoyance. When that email lands in everyone’s computer – how many of those machines are compromised by Malware or viruses? Probably a good number. These programs are just waiting to scoop up new email addresses for their SPAM activities.
Then, there are those on the list that aren’t sterling members of the internet community. You’ve just sent them a free marketing list – complete with basic demographics.
Case in point: My national fraternity gave out my email without my permission. It was for a mailing announcing a dinner get together. Hundreds of email addresses were CC’d on the mass mailing. My SPAM rate shot up 100% after that.
Then the original idiot who had the list sent it to another “brother” – same thing. Mass mailing for a BBQ. Result? Another huge spike in consistent SPAM.
Then another mailing, from the same list. Another pike in SPAM.
The last idiot was a lawyer – who sent out his email on the firm’s letterhead. The remarkable thing is that at the end of the missive, it had a privacy statement!
You can’t cure stupid, as they say.
The lawyer was even outraged that I complained to his boss – that’s how dense he was.
(In case you’re wondering – the compromised email address was for my business, so changing it isn’t practical.)
Hmm… I have exactly one email address. I’d go nuts trying to remember others, let alone check the accounts. I know… I’ve tried it.
The ISP has great spam filters and I seldom get more than a few that sneak by in a week. My email is downloaded to Thunderbird on my computer, which runs Ubuntu linux and is therefore not very vulnerable to those viri and bots.
As for forwards, those from people I don’t know are dumped unread and their address added to the blacklist. Those from people I do know are growled at and don’t usually re-offend. I do NOT engage in any argument or discussion about them. Folks who do not honor the “NO FORWARDS” are simply added to the blacklist and the spam filter nukes them.
I do not speak to telemarketers either. Most of the time they are a bleeding recording anyway. Now, I know some folks get a lot of giggles out of messing with telemarketers, and I have done so occasionally (mostly with political surveys), but really… how much fun is it to argue with a recording? They are honestly expecting me to call THEM?
I “screen” my calls, and people I do know who won’t stay on long enough for me to identify and pick up… well, they didn’t really want to talk to me anyway.
Most people know I am ruthless about this and they take it to heart. If you don’t want people to impose on you… don’t let them! Say NO, or “go to hell,” and mean it. You all are just plain too NICE. 🙂
I’m more of an asshole about it, I’ll get bored one day and use said spammer’s email to sign them up for something more appropriate. Like those chain emails about how awful the gays are and we should throw them all in jail or those pricks who send pictures of aborted babies to make people feel bad, those people may receive the latest ‘leather and sodomy’ newsletter or somesuch every week. On the same note, I understand that both Westboro and the Klan will send some insanely annoying emails to your more liberal minded spammers. But the’ touched by an angel’ crap gets the best stuff by far.
I consider myself somewhat of the Tyler Durden of spam email