Comments on: More Reasons for Paranoia

By: Warren Bickford

Warren Bickford — Sat, 20 Aug 2005 02:12:22 +0000

OK, so now I am totally paranoid - as if I wasn’t paranoid enough before. Protection of personal information is a huge and important topic. Many jurisdictions (including Canada) have introduced or are introducing tough laws meant to protect personal information. Good on ‘em.

I found it only slightly ironic (read heavy sigh and much eye rolling) when I heard a news story earlier today that Canada’s Justice Minister is calling for broader powers for law enforcement to have easier access to people’s email (and cell phone conversations).

Round and round we go. Where it stops, nobody knows.

By: Peter Dean

Peter Dean — Fri, 19 Aug 2005 19:45:18 +0000

I think I will have to use ReadNotify in order to find out where these comments come from (they were in the IABC Belgium Newsletter but I am quite sure that Robert Holland doesn’t live anywhere near, in spite of his name). So is this cafe global or local? And why are there so few contributions?

By: Robert J Holland, ABC

Robert J Holland, ABC — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 17:11:50 +0000

I’d like to respond to Sean’s question about how to reach potential customers/consumers with marketing information.

I think the answer lies not so much in the marketing as in the product or service. In a world of increased self-selecting out of receiving marketing, the pressure will be on companies (or individuals) to develop products and services that truly deliver benefits to their customers.

I, for one, have no sympathy for purveyors of products and services that have questionable value and deliver limited benefits. Products and services that really help solve people’s problems or make their lives better, on the other hand, will be easier to market because consumers will be looking for these things.

In a recent workshop for entrepreneurs on how to market their products and services on a limited budget, I suggested that one of the most cost-effective marketing techniques is to have a superior product or service.

By: Eric Eggertson

Eric Eggertson — Thu, 18 Aug 2005 04:35:36 +0000

Thanks for the links, Dan.

By: Dan York

Dan York — Wed, 17 Aug 2005 19:09:40 +0000

Tom,

Good article. Being also involved with IT security, I long ago decided to try to forego the fancy fonts and formatting of HTML e-mail and read my e-mail only in plain text whenever I could (which I do for my personal e-mail via Thunderbird). This does have the severe disadvantage that many e-mail messages wind up with truly horrible formatting, but it does have the advantage that these type of services (ReadNotify) generally don’t work at all. (It’s also incredibly easy to tell when a message supposedly from e-bay or PayPal is really trying to get you to go to some other web site.)

For a brief examination of how these services actually work, Network World has an article at http://www.networkworld.com/newsletters/sec/2004/0920sec1.html
that introduces “web bugs”. The Electronic Frontier Foundation also has more information at http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Marketing/web_bug.html.

Regards,
Dan

By: Sean Williams

Sean Williams — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 18:48:30 +0000

Tom — This points out something fascinating (imo)… As we continue to self-select out of receiving marketing messages, how will marketers let us know about their products ? This is not to say I advocate heavy-handed, spyware-laden, sneaky-snake computer applications — and I’m mortified that the PR person would react so inappropriately…

But with mass media’s share of the mass shrinking, what’s on the horizon?

When I was pitching, it was hard to get even to a conversation with anyone to discuss the product… If we can’t e-mail, can’t mail, can’t phone and advertising doesn’t work unless it’s opt-in, where does that leave us?

Vey is Mier.
S.

By: Tom Keefe

Tom Keefe — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 17:14:21 +0000

Ron, thanks for pointing out that AOL had a similar feature. Actually, I hate the “Read Receipt” feature of Microsoft Outlook that some people use to say, “Don’t try ignoring my email, because I’ll know that you read it!” In the example I mentioned in my original post, the thing that creeped me out was the sudden realization that someone was watching me as I surfed. Then, that person expected me to warmly welcome his pop-up invitation to “talk.” I viewed my surfing as “window shopping,” where I wouldn’t expect an interaction with the sales staff. Mr. Pop-up saw me as a potential customer who had “entered his store,” and would be more prone to buy if a salesperson engaged me.

Tom Keefe

By: Ron Iseri

Ron Iseri — Tue, 16 Aug 2005 16:03:20 +0000

This is great, a way to tell someone their message was “Deleted. Not read.”

America OnLine introduced a similar feature in the 90s.

What we need now is a free download called ReturnToSenderTimesTen.