Le 2010-02-21 à 14:00, Ray Barber a écrit :
> 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.

I think the only thing I don't fully understsand is if a "media partner" 
(honestly, I don't understand what that means) asks to be removed, the response 
should be "sorry to see you go; your account has been removed". Asking why 
they're asking to be removed makes sense, but only in the context of "what can 
we do better?".

> It was very obvious to me this is a kid who doesn't have much time on his 
> hands.

Michael's perchant for exaggeration is well known, but I think this is a bit 
disingenuous, considering information on Michael is dead easy to find online[1].

[1]:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Arrington

> 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

So you never actually said any of the things attributed to you/prmac in that 
article?

At any rate, I don't want to belabour this, and I'm definitely not trying to 
attack prmac or Ray. That said, it seems that a fair number of people on this 
list use prmac's services, and having a more transparent, public explanation on 
the prmac site of exactly how these media partnerships work would only help to 
clarify prmac's methodology.

So, if we want to talk about specifics, here's a few things I'm curious about:

* What exactly is a media partner? How does an organization, like, MacLife 
magazine, or Macworld get that designation? Is it really just the radio button 
in the sign up form?
* Is there any safeguards in place to verify that someone adding an external 
email address is actually that person? Do you sent out verification emails 
before accounts become active, or are they immediately active?
* Is there a clearly labelled way for someone to opt out of all future email 
included in the prmac emails that are sent out, and also in the account system?

I think questions like these are important to ask. prmac is, as far as I know, 
the only mac-specific service that handles what is basically a subscription 
email service. As an industry, it's important that we self-police how these 
types of communications are handled, because ultimately abuse of these channels 
harms everyone who wants to use them.

Neil

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