Strictly speaking, this isn't SAGE or BBLISA business, but it touches a
topic near and dear to all our hearts, and it's so sad as to almost be
funny, so I will share it with the lists.
Warning, as with so many of my messages, strong opinion follows.
An hour ago, the following arrived in my inbox:
Date: Tue, 17 Sep 2002 11:40:53 -0400
From: "L-Soft list server at ACM (1.8d)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: You have been added to the PDLAUNCH list
Tue, 17 Sep 2002 11:40:53
You have been added to the PDLAUNCH mailing list (ACM Professional
Development Announcement List) by Haritini Kanthou
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.
. . .
To send a message to all the people currently subscribed to
the list, just send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
. . .
You may leave the list at any time by sending a "SIGNOFF PDLAUNCH"
command to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Well that's just peachy: Opt-out spam from the ACM!
But wait, it gets better:
IMPORTANT: This list is confidential. You should not publicly mention
its existence, or forward copies of information you have obtained
from it to third parties.
OK, copyright law says I can't forward mail from someone without their
permission, but regarding whether the list itself (or the information
sent to it) is confidential, well, as I see it, you can't have both
opt-out and a "license agreement."
So now I'm pissed off enough to send a rather terse message to Haritini
Kanthou; here's the gist of his reply:
ACM has arranged with Sun to offer free courses to ACM Members as a
benefit of their ACM membership. The PDLauch list is a one-time
list, to be used to send out a single message announcing this new
member benefit.
And there you have it, folks: The Association for Computing Machinery
spams us, telling us they're going to send more spam!
No wonder they wanted to keep it confidential. :-(
AdamM
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