Last Updated on: 29th September 2013, 01:41 pm
Here’s a message for everyone who blindly follows their ISP’s spam filter, or stupidly clicks “this is spam” when something is not. If you’re one of those and you receive the”this Is True” newsletter, and marked it as spam, you may have contributed to ruining the publication. Yup. Because of you, thousands of his subscribers who are on Yahoo are no longer receiving his publication because Yahoo thinks he’s spam and wouldn’t listen to him because why would they listen to a spammer? Their users were the ones who said he was spam. His revenue has gone way down and he may have to change things drastically to save the publication, all because of a few zombified clicks of the spam button.
Let me define spam email for the people who don’t seem to get it. Spam email is unsolicited email. That means you didn’t ask for it. It came unbidden, and you have no earthly clue how the author of the spam got your address. A newsletter which you have to opt into through a two-step process is *not* spam just because you no longer want it. That’s what the unsubscribe link at the bottom is for. I have to say this. If you know something is spam, don’t click the unsubscribe link at the bottom of those. That will only get you more spam. Ok, everybody got that? Good.
Luckily, his blog entry got super mega attention, and a mail tech from yahoo is working on fixing the problem, so all future yahoo people won’t lose his entry, but that doesn’t bring back all the people that he already lost.
So there are two morals to the story. First, if your ISP has a spam filter, don’t click the “this is spam” button willy-nilly. Be sure that what you’re marking as spam actually is. Also, please check your spam folder. If you don’t, you may never know what legitimate mail you’re losing. Spam filters are far from perfect. For those who get thousands of spam daily, I guess you’re excused, but for the regular joe, spare a few seconds to check the folder.
Second, if you thought about subscribing to True before but never got around to it, please do so now. If you like the free edition, tell your friends. If you really like it, upgrade to the premium version. Plese, help Randy out!
I find it highly ironic that the very guy who’s been fighting against spam for years has been labeled as a spammer. Life just isn’t fair.
