PR Firm vs. Techies
from the who-wins? dept
I'm not really sure this is as big of a deal as it's being made out to be, but here's the NY Times summary of what happened last week between the well known email list Politech and uber-PR firm Fleishman-Hillard. A Fleishman-Hillard office manager had been on vacation - and during that time a former employee's email (who had subscribed to the Politech list) was transferred to this office manager. When she came back, she had over 80 messages from Politech, and sent a very angry email to Declan McCullagh, threatening him for spamming her - and saying she would do everything in her power to stop him. Declan forwarded the message, and the Politech folks went crazy, trashing Fleishman. Now... if the situation had been reversed, somehow I think the results would have been the same (the Politech folks trashing Fleishman again). While it is somewhat ironic that a PR firm known for promoting companies any way they can is angry about possible "spam" from a list that is well known for being quite anti-spam - the office manager did try to unsubscribe. Yes, her anger was probably a little strong - but she did honestly believe it was spam that she had not signed up for - and how angry would you be if you suddenly got 80 messages you didn't sign up for, and your unsubscribe notice was ignored? Update: Not surprisingly, it appears that the NY Times version isn't quite accurate. It probably helps to go directly to the source and read the details at Politech. It appears that someone at Fleishman certainly over reacted, but I still don't think it's as bad as some made it out to be.
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