FC: Dave Touretzky replies to direct marketing group over Godiva

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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Return-Path: <Dave_Touretzky () ammon boltz cs cmu edu>
From: Dave_Touretzky () cs cmu edu
To: Ben Isaacson <ben () interactivehq org>
Cc: politech () politechbot com
Subject: none dare call it "spam" ?
Date: Fri, 05 Apr 2002 00:47:19 -0500

Hi, Ben.  This is in response to your defense of Godiva.com on
Politech:

You are correct that I did not read the Godiva privacy policy before
ordering.  Silly me!  I assumed that a long-established,
nationally-known company would know better than to screw with its
customers this way, and that I needn't read every word of their
lengthy online "privacy" policy before ordering a simple gift of
chocolates for a sick friend.  I guess they taught me a lesson, huh?

As for the definition of "spam": unwanted bulk email is spam.  Just
because I ordered a box of chocolates doesn't mean I gave Godiva
permission to put me on a mailing list.  Amazon learned this the hard
way when they started spamming their customers and got a lot of people
furious with them.  Apparently Godiva wasn't paying attention.

While the Godiva privacy policy says they will not give out my email
ADDRESS to third parties, it also says at
http://www.godiva.com/customer/privacy.asp that they WILL offer third
parties the use of that information:

  "Additionally, we occasionally make portions of our mailing list
  available to other reputable companies whose products may be of
  interest to you ..."

There you have it.  Godiva is pimping my information to third parties.
Whether that's done in a way that prevents further harvesting of my
email address is irrelevant.  They're still taking money from other
companies for the privilege of lobbing turds into my mailbox.  I
object to this.

Finally, you point out that Godiva's solicitations include an opt-out
option.  Unfortunately, that "option" is just a URL for a web site
where you're supposed to manually type in an email address to be
removed.  But the spam they send out does not indicate what address
they're using to spam you, so if you have many addresses, or if your
address can take many forms (as mine does), you have know way of
knowing what string is in their database!  

The unsubcribe URL that Godiva provides appears to be for stopping
delivery of Godiva's email newsletter.  The privacy policy indicates
that one must call the 800 number to prevent being spammed by third
parties.

What I asked Godiva to do when I wrote to them was remove me entirely
from their database.  Forget I ever existed, because they're not going
to make another dime in sales from me for as long as they continue to
treat their customers with this kind of contempt.

Not surprisingly, there has been no reply.

When customers insist on REAL privacy policies instead of fig leaves,
companies do comply, or their customers go elsewhere.  I order my
books from Barnes & Noble, not Amazon, because of Amazon's repeated
bad behavior.  Godiva may be a big name, but there are lots of other
chocolatiers selling over the web who do not thumb their noses at
customer privacy.  I urge Politech readers to patronize them.

-- Dave Touretzky


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