
Browsing your website does not mean I want your spam (2016) - cjy
https://artplusmarketing.com/browsing-your-website-does-not-mean-i-want-your-spam-3821267e902#.vd0fwinq2
======
merricksb
Discussed previously:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12335168](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12335168)
(615 points, 184 days ago)

~~~
inetknght
Best comment, IMO:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12339338](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12339338)

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laughinghan
> They are able to do this because sears.com loads Criteo code and uses a
> criteo.com cookie

> there may not be much you can do about this besides blocking cookies

Most browsers let you block 3rd-party cookies without blocking all cookies (in
this case, blocking the the criteo.com cookie but not the sears.com cookie,
when on sears.com): [https://www.maketecheasier.com/disable-third-party-
cookies-c...](https://www.maketecheasier.com/disable-third-party-cookies-
chrome-firefox/)

~~~
richardwhiuk
Does this actually count as a third-party cookie if the sears page loads
criteo in an iframe (which may be 1px by 1px, and tell criteo that it was
invoked by sears)?

~~~
ubernostrum
"Third-party" is based on the domain shown in your browser's address bar. If
that shows sears.com, then domains which aren't sears.com are third-party.

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inetknght
> The CAN SPAM act actually allows direct marketing email messages to be sent
> to anyone, without permission, until the recipient explicitly requests that
> they cease (opt-out).

Ladies and gentlemen, let's get this fixed. Spam is not only a waste of
resources (bandwidth, time, and money) but it also contributes to malware
distribution.

What will it take to accomplish this?

~~~
paulddraper
Overturning the first amendment.

Unfortunately, it protects lots of speech, good and bad.

~~~
ubernostrum
Restrictions on commercial solicitation don't generally have First Amendment
problems.

~~~
greenokapi
Yeah, this probably isn't going to encounter first amendment issues. It's much
more likely that corporate lobbying will be the cause of any resistance to
changing the law.

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dfar1
That and the fact that any app you download now adds you to their newsletter
list. Just because I wanted to try your app, it doesn't mean I want to get
tons e-mails from your company. It's so frustrating I stopped trying apps, and
instead only download what I really need and/or trust.

~~~
creichert
Have you ever tried to make a business out of selling an app online or in an
app store? How did you get users?

I definitely don't agree with "tons" of e-mails but a few promotional emails
is understandable. I also don't agree with the tactics used in the article, to
be clear.

~~~
chris_7
Why is the company's inability to get users my problem? Those emails get
flagged and placed in spam, where they belong? Spam is never "understandable".
Get an (explicit, non-dark-pattern) opt in or you're spam.

~~~
creichert
Do you consider signing up to use an app with your email opt-in?

~~~
chris_7
Absolutely not. I flag those as spam.

Unless it's an email notification from the service because of an action
someone took... those are okay but I'd prefer them to be off-by-default.

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vermontdevil
Amazon seems to be annoying in this area.

I look at a product out of curiosity.

Get stuck seeing the same product ads for days everywhere including FB, etc.

and yes I use Ublock, Ghostery etc.

~~~
shiift
Amazon uses your Amazon history to target Amazon ads to your interests. That's
not the same thing as giving your Amazon account information to a third party.

~~~
vermontdevil
I wasn't even logged in Amazon.

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jlarocco
Maybe I added it at some point, but " _criteo.com_ " is blocked by uBlock on
my machine.

Anyway, it's baffling to me that people still defend web advertising. That
"industry" is far sleazier and shadier than spammers, but for some reason
people here will defend web ads.

~~~
johncolanduoni
I think most people here are defending "web ads qua web ads" (i.e. a picture
in a box on a page that doesn't track you or start dancing around your
screen), not the realities of most web advertising today. I think it's sad
that business models that are based on non-intrusive web ads are becoming
increasingly infeasible, but I certainly don't blame users for the current
state of affairs.

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saberworks
Probably more evil than the practice described in the article is at the very
end. In order to get them to stop, or not start in the first place, you have
to give them your email address. So you have to trust them with the very thing
you want them to stop abusing. No thanks. The real answer is a very strict ad
blocker. On all your devices. Every time you browse.

The only way to keep your personal information safe is to not share it in the
first place. Pass all the laws you want and require all the layers of security
you can imagine but your data is still not safe; it will eventually get
leaked. Either through the actions of hackers, intentional or unintentional
leaks, security bugs, or utter incompetence of some human that has legal
access to it.

~~~
glandium
> So you have to trust them with the very thing you want them to stop abusing.

"Fun" fact: I register on sites with addresses like "address-suffix@domain",
with a different suffix for different sites. I won't name names, but I now
receive viagra-level spam to several of them, which reasonable people would
expect to be able to trust. haveibeenpwned.com confirms that one of them, off
the top of my head, was part of a breach.

~~~
farnsworth
Why not name names? Let's name and shame companies that are either selling
your info or hiding breaches.

~~~
kalleboo
I got spam to a email registered with Microsoft.

A company I worked for got its email list leaked when the email service they
used was breached. The email service posted a "we're investigating" in a blog
post on a blog that was soon mysteriously deprecated/taken down.

~~~
jasonkostempski
Microsoft sells the shit out of your email address. If you sign up for Dev
Essentials you can't even opt out of emails from "partners" unless you leave
the Dev Essentials program (and I'm sure leaving it wouldn't actually stop the
emails). The only spam I get at my work email (with spam filtering turned off)
is tied to that program.

------
jasonkostempski
"Browsing your website does not mean I want your spam"

"Never miss a story from ART + marketing, when you sign up for Medium. Learn
more"

Really wish Medium didn't allow custom domains so I could filter them out
properly.

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StavrosK
Doesn't Privacy Badger take care of this by blocking third-party cookies?

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morecoffee
Not to justify this behavior, but to explain: retargeting (a.k.a. remarketing)
has very good conversion rates. As long as people keep "converting" based on
retargeted ads, they will live on.

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jmbwell
Perhaps it should be noted that Criteo can send the email on the behalf of
Sears, without necessarily giving Sears your email address? Small distinction,
maybe, but more squarely within the terms and conditions.

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thomastjeffery
I completely agree that this is an abhorrent practice, but I don't believe
that legislation is the answer. Just because someone annoys you, does not mean
you need to involve legal precedent.

~~~
monochromatic
What is the answer then?

~~~
thomastjeffery
Privacy. Email considerably lacks it. So does web-browsing in general. I don't
have an answer on how to get it, but it needs pointing out that this is the
real underlying issue.

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cjy
I just got one of these exact same emails. It may not be illegal in the U.S.,
but it makes me extremely dislike the company using the tactic.

~~~
lightlyused
Could you post the headers or the ip the email came from? I want to block that
range from my email server.

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michaelhoffman
I would almost prefer this to all the web sites that harass me to sign up for
their newsletter with a modal popover on every page I visit.

Almost.

~~~
Sohcahtoa82
I wish uBlock knew how to block those. Sadly, I'm not sure you could write
software that could blocking those without blocking useful things like a login
prompt that pops up if you leave your session idle.

I suppose it could be done via whitelist or blacklist.

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monochromatic
That's really clever and disgusting.

