Haymarket on how to build a spam list : by Dixon jones

There’s a post by Mel on Brand Republic that links to me (Thanks Mel!) about a Guardian article that suggests just how little Brits understand search engines at the moment. I see Patrick is also weighing in on the Brits and search engine optimisation topic.

Now I appreciate the mention on Brand Republic, so I felt the urge to comment and add my thoughts. So to do this I have to register. Fair enough… it says “it only takes a minute”…

…Step 1 of three…

Not sure why there are three steps… I never got past step one. Why? because the sign up page has various opt-in/opt-out boxes as you would expect but I can’t opt out of this:

By registering on Brand Republic, Haymarket Publishing will automatically provide you with information relating to Brand Republic and other related Haymarket products and services via email, direct mail or telephone.

What? other related Haymarket products? They have hundreds! That means I have to opt-in to emails, junk mail and phone calls from things as diverse as:

Thanks for the link… here’s lots back… but sorry, I’ll just add my comment from afar in a pingback. I can’t see how it’s legal to force such a wide ranging opt-in. Please consider taking that clause out of the page registration, Haymarket.

6 users commented

Hi Dixon,

Andy McCormick, features ed on Revolution (Haymarket), here. I’ll look into this and get back to you. If you drop me an email or DM me on twitter I’ll get back with a response.

Best, Andy.

said amccormick on March 2nd, 2009 at 1:38 pm

Now THAT’s reputation management. Very impressively quick response Andrew. For anyone reading, Andrew picked this up within 10 minutes of the post.

said Dixon Jones on March 2nd, 2009 at 1:48 pm

If you have any communication with Haymarket they will add you to all kinds of lists and bombard you with emails and junk mail. They have been doing this for years and that’s why I refuse to have anything to do with them.

said andy on March 2nd, 2009 at 3:15 pm

Hi Dixon
Thanks to Andy for highlighting your post, we are looking into this today. We’ll get back to you when we have reviewed.
Meanwhile, it’s step 1 – details, step 2 – choose your bulletins, step 3 – confirm your email address is real. So hopefully not to onerous
Matthew Gerry, Brand Republic

said mgerry on March 3rd, 2009 at 9:21 am

Thanks Matthew

I don’t mean to labour on… but how many steps did you need to fill in to reply to this post?

But anyway – I’m grateful that you are looking at the underlying issue.

said Dixon Jones on March 3rd, 2009 at 12:39 pm

And now it’s December 2009. It still says:

From time to time Haymarket Media Group will allow carefully selected third parties to contact you about their products and services.

But although they allow you to opt out of the third party offer, there is no definition of third party.

Well – it’’s better, at least. But I doubt there’s much difference in substance.

said Dixon Jones on November 17th, 2009 at 1:03 pm

Haymarket on how to build a spam list

6 users commented

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Dixon Jones

Building links between Business and Internet Marketing