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Email marketing, spam and looking for business/work

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kat:
If you get the following email, disregard it, it's spam.
--- Quote from: [email]jeff.hofferski@gmail.com[/email] ---Hi

I was checking out your profile at blender.org and saw that you don't have a website yet.

The reason I am writting is because I'm a web designer that creates amazing web sites.

Thanks,
Jeff
--- End quote ---

The 'guy' behind this appears to be trawling though a number of websites including blender.org, polycount.net, cgsociety.org, 3dtotal.com and probably many others, for contact details to which he is sending out messages irrespective as to whether the recipients have websites or not - he isn't bothering to check which means he's mass mailing in the hopes of getting a bite. This is not "email marketing", it is by definition "spam", or more correctly "unsolicited mail".

It may seem harmless but if you do the same thing when wanting or touting for business - which is what this poor chap is doing - there are specific laws in place that require you to conduct yourself in a particular manner; with respect the people you are contacting, you must provide an opt-out or other mechanism that allows recipients the ability to unsubscribe (without risk). You're also supposed to make it clear just what you are 'selling', so information pertaining to that is a necessity - "I'm a web designer that creates amazing web sites" without example links isn't quite right, nor is "I make ace models" or "I makes gret games" for similar reasons.

In other words, sending out a mass-mailer is spam regardless as to whether you as a private individual think it's not. Keep that in mind next time you're working on a marketing campaign for your game, projects and/or looking for a job (in the industry), what sort of email would you like to get if someone were touting for business from you? That's generally the message you write...

Resources
The following is related to the US version of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003

* FTC Spam Act compliance guide for business
* FTC CAN-SPAM micro-site
* CAN-SPAM Act of 2003
The UK and many European countries have similar legislation in place

* European Union Anti-Spam legislation Summery
* COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS on unsolicited commercial communications or 'spam'
* (the above with language selection)

ratty redemption:
thanks for the heads up, and good advise kat.

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