Policy exists for business reasons
We live in a politically polarized world. Everyone wants exactly what they want and will only take it exactly as they would like it. You only need to look at the 2020 US Elections to see that. The New York Times has a wonderful example of that from the left: The movement’s identity is based
How to handle spamtraps
So, you’ve discovered that your customer has an issue with spamtraps on a mailing list. What do you do now? As a rule, spamtraps end up on a list due to problems with permission or hygiene. No, that’s not exclusive of other things, nor is it necessarily an indication that policies have been violated. But,
Spamtraps are not the problem
When you go to the doctor, do you want the doctor to treat your symptoms or do you want the doctor to give you treatment for the disease that is causing the symptoms? If you’re like most people, the answer will be “I want the doctor to treat the disease.” In my line of work,
What is a spamtrap?
One of the issues that I get to deal with in policy enforcement is handling complaints about customers sending messages to “spamtraps.” This invariably leads to a discussion about what, exactly, is a spamtrap? There are a lot of different answers out there. For instance, a 2019 blog post at Validity asserts that it is
Mental Health on Teams
Did you know that “burnout” is coming to the ICD-11 (due to be released in June 2022)? It’s true. Burnout will be recognized as an occupational syndrome resulting from work-related stress. Burn-out is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterized by three dimensions: feelings
Enforcement is therapeutic
Policies exist for a reason. For instance, most email service providers have a policy forbidding the use of non-opt-in lists. Those policies exist because of statements like this one: Microsoft prohibits the use of the service in any manner associated with the transmission, distribution, or delivery of any unsolicited bulk or unsolicited commercial e-mail (“spam”). You
Laws Still Apply to Bad Ideas
On Monday, I posted that “[acp title=”Forcing Consent Is A Bad Idea” medium=”blog” url=”https://www.spamtacular.com/2020/01/27/forcing-consent-is-a-bad-idea/” year=”2020″ month=”January” day=”27″ author=”Mickey Chandler” id=”me-02″ day_access=”29″ month_access=”January” year_access=”2020″]{title}[/acp]”. The point was to tell say that, regardless of legal issues, there are very practical reasons in favor of setting a policy of not trying to force consent. But, just because there
Forcing Consent Is A Bad Idea
We previously asked the question “who is your program for?” The idea behind that post was to briefly examine the idea that we make decisions for our programs that are based upon whom we have in mind to benefit. One example that I mentioned to show an incorrect focus was “We’ll require someone to register
Oklahoma does … something?
On January 13, 2020, the Oklahoma House received a nonsense bill. Rep. Collin Walke, Oklahoma E-Mail Communication Content Privacy Protection Act, (2020). This bill is intended to “make it illegal for companies, like Google or Microsoft, that host email servers to glean information from users.” Collin Walke, Facebook Post, Facebook (2020), https://www.facebook.com/Walkefor87/posts/2657786940984444 (last visited Jan
Who is your program for?
When designing something, one of the things which have to be done first is to consider what the purpose of the thing is. Many design decisions are based upon a consideration of whom the program is intended to benefit. Some decisions will seem to benefit both parties. “If people will give us their email addresses,