Like many people who have been active on the Internet since AOL was a standalone service, I’ve accumulated a number of email addresses over the years, many of which I still use. Some are short and easy to remember, and at least a few of them are routinely given out by people who think they are their own.<\/p>\n
The worst offender was a ski resort, who kept giving out my email address as their own — perhaps they even used it as their “reply to” address, since people were particularly stubborn in their insistence that they had the right address. I had a lot of conversations like these:<\/p>\n
“I’m sorry, I’m not affiliated with any ski resort, you’ll have to phone or mail the resort to get the correct address.”<\/p>\n
“But this is the address they gave me. Do you have parking for an RV?”<\/p>\n
“Well, on the street, but I’m not sure what good this will do you, since I’m probably a few hundred miles away from where you want to be. As I mentioned, I have nothing to do with the resort, and I do not know how to get in touch with them.”<\/p>\n
“Oh good. How far is the street from the slopes?”<\/p>\n
Perhaps they just appealed to a particularly obtuse clientele, but they kept doing it. So I asked somebody who emailed me for the number of the resort, and I called them to let them know their mistake. “No, that’s our email address,” I was told. I couldn’t convince them otherwise. Eventually I resorted to just giving out reservation confirmations, and they finally stopped.<\/p>\n
“Is it too late to reserve rooms for eight people for this weekend?”<\/p>\n
“No, you’re all set. Your confirmation number is 6893-261#-3472@.9653!7160321796. Please have this ready when you arrive.”<\/p>\n
I guess having irate people show up<\/em> is a lot more effective than politely asking them to knock it off. A lot of people give one of my email addresses out as their own when asked for an email address. I’m not sure if they just don’t know their own, or they just don’t think it matters, but I’ve been signed up by proxy for an appalling amount of things:<\/p>\n As the mood takes me, I might locate the phone number of the person whose account it is, and notify them of their mistake (reactions have ranged from confusion to threatening to sue me.) Sometimes I’ll just change the password and forget about it (there are probably a few poor schmucks still paying for porn that they don’t have access to and can’t cancel.) Sometimes I’ll update their profile in amusing ways. Although the thought has occurred to me to drain a few bank accounts, these are people who strike me as most genuinely confused and in need of an explanation — and I’m not really that much of a bastard.<\/p>\n I also get signed up for a lot of mailing lists, which can be fairly obnoxious. If mailing lists have a simple way to unsubscribe, I will. Better yet, mailing lists that ask for confirmation. I don’t confirm, and that’s the end of it. Some mailing lists are particularly obnoxious — no way to unsubscribe, or even worse, the only way to unsubscribe is to enter a lot of personal information on a separate web site (which, if it doesn’t match whatever information the idiot gave them when they provided your email address, won’t let you unsubscribe) or points to a site that doesn’t exist or resolve, etc. Since I don’t want to be on the mailing list, I’ll complain directly to their ISP. I’ve had a few car dealerships disconnected from the Internet by their ISP’s — who are usually pretty cooperative.<\/p>\n Note to email list administrators: always confirm email address, and have a simple way to unsubscribe, or you’re a spammer.<\/em><\/p>\n I also get emails directly from misguided individuals. It’s remarkable the amount of personal detail that people will include to an email address they’ve never sent anything to before. I usually reply to let them know I’m not who they think they’re contacting. Occasionally, they argue (which is bizarre to me, but some people get ideas stuck in their heads. “Dot! Stop fooling around!”) and occasionally, they’re just weird — some ask for unrelated computer help (which I provide, to the extent that I can help via email) and one lady told me that she was a “married Christian woman” and that it was improper for her to talk to a strange man. (This, of course, implies to me that she desperately wants to<\/em>, and either is unhappy with her husband or her repressive brand of Christianity — and she actually does keep writing — go figure.)<\/p>\n High on the obnoxiousness scale are the business emails I get, usually with tons of insider information, and a standard disclaimer telling me what I can and can’t do, my duties if I’m not the intended recipient, etc. I’m not a lawyer, and this isn’t legal advice by any means, but I don’t think I’m bound by any of this crap. If you send me an email, it’s mine.<\/em> I’ll do what I want with it. If you’re incompetent enough to send me insider or confidential information from your company, I’m going to feel free to post it on the Internet if I damned well feel like it, and you can stick your disclaimer wherever you like.<\/p>\n We don’t have a contractual relationship, and your email was unsolicited. You can’t create one using your disclaimer; I don’t agree to your terms. Any of your terms. If I feel<\/em> like sending you back an email informing you of your mistake, I might do that. Doing so does not mean I agree to your disclaimers, nor does it obligate me to send you another email informing you of your future mistakes when you do it again and again.<\/p>\n If we were to have a contractual relationship, I could see the value of a disclaimer, to, say, remind me of a confidentiality contract we mutually signed. But unsolicited email is precisely that; just as you can’t send me junk in the mail and obligate me to do anything with it, you can’t via email, either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Like many people who have been active on the Internet since AOL was a standalone service, I’ve accumulated a number of email addresses over the years, many of which I still use. Some are short and easy to remember, and at least a few of them are routinely given out \u2026 Continue reading \n