Why is So Much of My Email Crap?

Note: This is a rant. I try not to do many of these, because it’s kind of a negative way of looking at the world, and there are so many fun ways that it’s generally not worth getting all het up about it.

This one came up because my handy gmail notifier just announced a bunch of completely useless emails and my irritation overflowed, causing me to abandon the post I was writing about explosions and to start this one.

Here are 4 of the emails I received. If you were stretching it, you could call them were single-opt in as part of signing up for a service or group. In reality, I didn’t realize I was signing up for any of these lists.

1,000 Ways to Say “I Love You” from Team Gather. I must have signed up for this newsletter when I created my Gather account. It’s a neat service, but not one that I’ve ever really gotten into. The email marketing is sponsored by Bronto, and the unsubscribe page is pretty decent. But the email content isn’t great. I don’t want to heart-ping anyone. I would be alarmed if someone tried to heart-ping me. Leave my heart alone, I need it to process blood so I can eat more cookies.

Own your home sooner with ING DIRECT. Okay, well, I am actually looking at houses. This is a targeted email. A 5% rate is pretty good. But, I won’t go with you because I’ve been trying to cancel my bank account with you for about a year without success. Also, your unsubscribe landing page indicates it will take 5 days to unsubscribe, which is absurd, as this should be an instant process with any competent email list hosting service.

LinkedIn News: The Next Phase of Social Business Networking is Here! – Press Releases. The content of this email says, “The Next Phase of Social Business Networking is Here! A terrific article generously shared by Victoria, a Facebook “friend”.” First off, thank you for sharing this article. But I do not know you through Facebook, and just because I am connected to you on LinkedIn doesn’t mean I have opted-in to receive mass emails from you. Since we are connected on LinkedIn, and I don’t want to disconnect with you because I’ve heard rumors that it negatively affects your profile, I have no way to delete this email or to unsubscribe from this list.

Don’t forget to send Valentine’s Day eCards from Plaxo. Another service that includes an email newsletter in their profile sign-up process. Not a bad idea, and worthwhile when a service has really interesting content to offer. What bugs me is that I have unsubscribed to the system messages from Plaxo, but still receive random emails like this one. I have opted out of this list. Please respect that.

I did also receive 1 personal email, which cheered me up. Dave, this is for you, and yes, I can totally see your laptop cord rocking out to this:

Please click through to the blog if you are unable to view the video.