I had heard the stories more than once. Someone who has an internet-based business sets up a newsletter or a mailing list to stay in touch with customers and potential customers via e-mail.
After signing up and agreeing to receive the newsletter or mailing list messages, some clueless AOL user receives an e-mail message just as they had agreed to, and then they get ticked off and hit AOL’s brilliantly-conceived (NOT) “Report As Spam” button.
At this point it is believed that AOL’s systems start keeping score and tracking how many other AOL users report spam coming from this particular source and if enough spam reports are accumulated, the sender of the e-mail messages may be blocked from sending any e-mail to any AOL user.
With the large number of users on AOL, being blocked from sending mail to any AOL e-mail address could be a serious problem for a business that has customers who use AOL.
Just recently I had done some work on one of my sites and part of that was to upgrade the e-mail process we were using and sign on with one of the major e-mail management companies.
Once I got my subscriber list moved over to the new service I sent out an e-mail to all subscribers to verify that they wanted to remain on our list. This was mandated by the e-mail management service to ensure that we were in compliance with anti-spam laws.
Sure enough, the next morning I find an e-mail message from the service to inform me that one of my subscribers who happens to be on AOL has reported my message as spam.
Keep in mind this is something this particular AOL user signed up for. She deliberately selected the option to be on our subscriber list during the check-out process when she purchased something from our site. By default, the option is turned OFF, so the visitor has to take deliberate action to be included on our mailing list.
This clueless twit signs up as a subscriber and then reports our message as spam when she received it. What is wrong with idiots like that?
And speaking of idiots, the people who run AOL are the biggest idiots of all. To give their users a one-click method to report an e-mail message as spam and then actually trust these users enough (some of the most inexperienced users on the internet, by the way) to basically allow them to ban certain messages from ever reaching anyone on AOL is ridiculous.
Here’s my advice to AOL users: Cancel your AOL account and sign up with a “real” internet service provider.
If you’re unwilling to give up your AOL account, I strongly suggest you consider this: Sign up for a free e-mail account at Yahoo or Hotmail or one of the other free e-mail services and use that address if you sign up for any newsletters or mailing lists. At least then you will know that your subscription probably won’t be cut off suddenly some day with no warning or explanation because some of your fellow AOL users reported the sender of your newsletter as a spammer.
And for heaven’s sake, if you are an AOL user and you sign up for a newsletter or mailing list using your AOL e-mail address, don’t report the sender as spam! You’re potentially hurting someone who is probably playing by the rules and just trying to run an honest business. If they are indeed following the rules, you will receive instructions on how to get off the list in each and every message they send to you. All you have to do is follow those instructions to get off the list.
Of course hitting that handy “Report As Spam” button is easier than clicking the unsubscribe link in an e-mail message, so of course, the users abuse it. Of course they are going to opt for the easiest solution they have available and they just want the messages to stop. How the geniuses at AOL missed seeing the enormous potential for abuse with a tool like this is beyond me.
The user who reported our e-mail message as spam has, of course, been removed from our list. I can only hope that she receives her share of real spam on a regular basis. I know of a few sure-fire ways she can make that happen. Perhaps I should e-mail her and provide her with a few “tips.” She’s probably clueless enough to follow through with them.
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