Hello Jack, Nick, all .... First off, thanks for supporting our cause and the kind words. :-)
I have resisted writing to the MacSB list, mostly because I felt it should be an internal issue and, didn't believe it to be very cool airing ones' dirty laundry. Given what I've read here so far though, accept my apologizes in advance. I'm compelled to highlight details which are fact. Yes, I find it regrettable. It's unfortunate that every single point Mike speaks to is patently and utterly false. We spend a lot of time building relationships with our media partners, certainly not tearing them down. Why on earth would we do that? Neither prMac nor our customers would have anything to gain by it. So predicated on that alone should tell someone something. I'm proud to say that we have incredibly great relations with our media partners, and it's not uncommon that I hear from them frequently. I'm always asking how we can make our service better for them (ie: following proper format, the style of distributions, elements contained in them, etc). Obviously, the better we can entertain and keep our media partners happy, the more successful our customers are. It's a win win for everyone, and continues to be. And by the wayside, if any of our (other) media partners thought we were spamming, I've yet to hear about it. I can assure we don't "scattershot" email to anyone. The *only* way it works is by that source registering (ie: opting in) to our service first. And even then they filter channels which are relevant to their audience. This is a very methodical process that takes a human to do. It just doesn't happen by itself. For the CS inclined: We are a press release distribution network, whose content is transactional (or relationship) based and facilitates an already agreed-upon transaction. TechCrunch registered with prMac on the 16th of September, of 2008. Someone during this time added another email address to their account profile, so I know they knew how to login and sniff around. (which coincidentally, is exactly the reason they were getting duplicates in the first place). Worse, is the total lack of professionalism when dealing with Mike. It was very obvious to me this is a kid who doesn't have much time on his hands. Never mind the foul/insincere language throughout the whole ordeal. In short, Mike fails to mention (in his TC article) that we replied with their account info and everything else they needed to login and maintain it (Well, he does bring it up, but indicates we did so under one of his "employees" request). At the minimum, all he needed to do is write us if he wanted to be removed from our distribution list (among other things). What I wanna know is why did he wait so long to say anything about it, never bothered to contact us, or anything else until three days ago? And who is Gene anyway? You would of thought that since he worked for Mike they had some kind of communication, right? As well, Mike fails to bring up the fact that I reached out to him first, and inquired about this post; http://techcrunch.posterous.com/prmac-crazy-spam I was not belligerent, and diplomatic in my query, albeit more than surprised, given they had been registered to prMac as a media partner for close to three years. I did my level best at describing how everything works (several gyrations of course, each with their own BS reply), and ultimately proved to him that they were registered to our service. Instead of handling it peacefully, he cherry picked nuggets out of every email response and blatantly twisted them around into making prMac look like a spam house -- in a subsequent TC article which he published that night. Since that article was published, I've received all kinds of goofy/nasty email. This came all within literally minutes of him publishing his article. Neither does Mike mention (in the TC article) that after his second reply, I told him I had already deleted his media account, so that should have satisfied him/assuaged future concerns. In return, all I ask for is that he please remove the posterous article because it was misleading. Instead, he went on to write the TC article that night. To be sure, this is the most impetuous person I believe I've met in my life. Will the real Gene McPherson stand up? > Ridiculous. I know spam, I get truckloads of it every day. A spammer > is someone who sends you email in backhanded ways, typically from a > false email address through a botnet, and there's no way in hell to > get yourself off their list, or even contact them. PrMac is definitely > not spamming. > > //j > > On Saturday, February 20, 2010, NickMtl <[email protected]> wrote: >> So, PrMac, our favorite indy software press release agents are getting >> the TechCrunch treatment: >> >> http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/19/i-pissed-off-a-pr-spammer-today/ >> >> On the one hand, nobody likes a spammer. On the other hand, TechCrunch >> is not exactly, hum..., devoted to telling the truth. >> >> Still gonna use PrMac next chance I get. >> >> -- >> - Nick - Ray Barber CEO / Director of Operations MacScripter, LLC | macscripter.net > Le 2010-02-21 à 05:17, Jack Nutting a écrit : >> Ridiculous. I know spam, I get truckloads of it every day. A spammer >> is someone who sends you email in backhanded ways, typically from a >> false email address through a botnet, and there's no way in hell to >> get yourself off their list, or even contact them. PrMac is definitely >> not spamming. > > I'm probably going to regret responding to this, but I have to say: that's a > pretty narrow definition of spam. Ultimately, for most people, spam is > "commercial mail I didn't ask for or want". Arguably, that can include > personal email as well (cf. endless bulk forwards containing jokes, funny > photos, etc. from friends), but I'd rather leave that can of worms alone for > now. > > I can't comment on prmac's methodolgy, as I've never used their service (for a > number of reasons not worth going into here), but a *lot* of PR companies tend > to scattershot their emails to anyone they think might be even vaguely > interestede in the contents. > > I think a major problem with prmac is the lack of any anti-spam policy, which > almost all other email services have. See Campaign Monitor's anti-spam page > for a good, clear explanation of their policy: > > http://www.campaignmonitor.com/anti-spam/ > > There's also <http://www.spamhaus.org/definition.html>. > > The crux of this is that it should *never* be recipient's responsibility to > prove that they signed up to receive emails, and if they complain or want out, > there should be a clear and straight-foward way for them to opt out. Michael > Arrington's word isn't worth much these days, but if any of the correspondance > he posted is true, it's pretty suspect if prmac isn't providing this clear way > for recipients to opt out. > > It doesn't matter if your product involves body part "enhancements" or indie > software; the product is immaterial. If a user no longer wants to receive > email from you, but you don't provide an out, and keep sending them email, > it's spam. > > Neil
