So a few events in my life have just crossed paths for us in this house and I thought it would be an interesting comparison for me to tell you about them.
On one side, I had an abuse complaint that came in to one of the companies I work for in which an unsolicited batch of email was sent from one of my customers to a complainant. When investigated by my privacy and abuse team; and as expected; it was an unconfirmed list upload (actually 4) for the bulk email event. The contacts were from lists provided by another individual who is holding the event that was advertised in the email, but not belonging to the actual person who sent the emails nor is the owner of the lists actually part of the company that sent the email (confused?) My customer contact explained to us that she was advised that these contacts were good when she received them from the other individual however it appears she was misled by that person since we got some anger driven complaints. Probably not intentionally misled, but either way a problem exists. My customer said this is not normal practice for my them and we did warn her about doing any kind of purchased / unknown list upload in the future. It does turn out that we think she knew something was wrong with this process when she saw the complaints and since the data we wanted to get from her was deleted before we got to her on the phone. We will monitor, but I don’t think this will be an issue with them in the future.
On the other side, in my house we are getting ready for Halloween and trying to decide if the twins will be Mario and Luigi since that seems to be the number one game they are playing on their Nintendo DS. In all the midst of this, my wife and I also need to be prepared for the night of fun by decorating the house and making sure we know how to search through their goodies that night so that nothing harmful enters our kids pumpkin buckets or mouths when we get home.
I found an interesting set of points from the local police department to remind adults about the possibilities of harmful things in candy.
- Carefully check all candy before allowing your child to eat it.
- Eat only those treats still in their original unopened wrappers.
- Throw away candies if wrappers are faded, have holes or tears or signs of re-wrapping.
- Throw away all unwrapped candy.
- Check fruit and homemade treats for punctures or foreign bodies that may have been injected, such as pins, metal needles or razor blades. Allow your child to eat such items only if from someone you know and trust. Most treat makers are well intentioned, but it s not worth the risk.
- WHEN IN DOUBT THROW IT OUT!!!
I love that last one, but in reading that I began to realize that in my conversations with customers who do crazy things like the above list issue… most of them realize it, but aren’t acting on it to stop it from happening
I know it’s a crazy comparison, but folks…. treat your email programs like you would your kids. Protect it from harmful decision or things. Do your due diligence in checking your sources or someone’s thinking if it seems wrong. If something doesn’t look right, then don’t do it.
WHEN IN DOUBT THROW IT OUT!!!
-Dennis
Eloqua
Don’t Just Send, Deliver!
Last 5 posts by Dennis Dayman
- European Data Protection "Upgrades" - January 30th, 2012
- Return Path acquires OtherInbox - January 10th, 2012
- How NOT to react to spam complaints - January 9th, 2012
- Care2 breach is something to care about - January 3rd, 2012
- The passing of a great mind and great friend - November 17th, 2011
