Invitation spam email

An interesting note titled 'New form of invitation Spam Email'

As the note says, "Even Facebook has joined on the invitation spam bandwagon.". I wonder if there are any estimates of how many invitations are being sent daily by the social networking invite features.

Interesting, this article has a reference to the one written by Paul Nikkel "Facebook reaches new lows with email invitation spam"

Which in turns has a reference to this excellent note, "Is Facebook using invitation email addresses for sign-up spam?" (with my comment at the end :) )

The question at the bottom is very similar to the one I have in my first post:

The email does have an unsubscribe link at the bottom but does it matter? If I have never given Facebook my email, I have never opted-in nor had the chance to opt-out of these Facebook marketing emails.

I read the comments on this last article and I'm just shocked. The key? The comment by Herc, July 22nd 2009 at 9:36 am:

It is now blatanntly obvuious that gmail and facebook are sharing email addresses.

Facebook invite spam

I found an interesting comment from a reader, Mac Homer, in this article, in which the reader says this, after a lot of email were sent, using the Facebook invite feature:

Many unpleasant folks have contacted me and are very irritatedat me and fb!

And he explains how difficult it was to try to stop the invites already scheduled to be sent by email. I really like his last paragraph:

fb requires you delete these invites one by one. Deleted.
However, here it is a week later and the weekly fb spam has been sent
out to all of the formerly invited contacts again!!! What a joke!
Horrible business practice!!

Facebook SPAM reminder

Short story. I'm tired of the 'Facebook' reminders. And a quick check using Google tells me that I'm not alone.

Long story. I kept looking and I don't think anybody has taken this seriously. I sent a nice letter to Facebook. That was yesterday. I just didn't want to tell them 'you are the spam king'

Then, on November 12th 2010, I saw this

I think I have a different opinion now.

Look at the video carefully. The explanation is not the point here.

In 1:08 I can see this:










I checked and he has 89 friends. The video is from November 2009, so I guess he had less friends at the time.

This is what happened. On his behalf, Facebook had scheduled 1252 invitations!

Every invitation is one of those reminders, an email with the following subject line:

Reminder: (my name) invited you to join Facebook...

When I say that the explanation is not the point is because of this. I NEVER provided my email to Facebook. What is happening is the following, plain an simple.

Facebook created a monster spam machine, well hidden, one of those that is well buried, ready to explode just by the click of a mouse. When the user imports his/her emails lists from an online service, boom! the spam starts. And I guess Facebook will say "we didn't click, that was the user's fault. He/she didn't read the TOS, so technically he/she sent those invites".

Again. I NEVER provided my email to Facebook. Do I have to call/email all my friends to ask them to remove my email account from Facebook? That would be possible, but WRONG.

Facebook got that information and is using it, without their knowledge. to distribute SPAM. Yes, the reminders to potential new users. A Facebook lawyer will say that every user read the TOS and that well buried there it says that they can do whatever they want. Wrong answer. My friends don't own my email address. That's private information between my friends and I.

Anyway. I don't like fights. I'm a nice guy. Most of the time.

So I said. My friends didn't sent me those 'reminders' . Who did it? That has to be the Facebook team. But wait. They are not my friends. Or perhaps they are and I didn't know!

So, I did a check, first for the Facebook executives, google more, and decided to sent to them the following letter.

Yes, I do have a Facebook account, that I barely use, but in which I have never used the email in question. So I used my account, as I indicated in my letter below, to send some friendship invites to four of the executives. And I sent 3 notes to the ones I couldn't invite to make my friendship better.

It doesn't look good. Today, two of them rejected my invitation. I guess they are not my friends.

This is the letter.

Sorry about my horrible grammar and writing. Both, in this post and the letter.

-----------
To:
cc: press@facebook.com

Subject: Just to say hello and to send you a request

Dear Friends.

I have never provided the email account that I'm using to send this email to Facebook. And if you my friends or someone in Facebook says that 'my friend' gave you my email, that’s spam. My friend doesn't own my email account. If he/she has my email, that's for us to be in contact. That's private information that my friend has, and Facebook has no right to use it to send spam. THAT IS ILLEGAL. At least it is in my country.

I'm not the only one tired with Facebook 'reminders' sent as SPAM. I guess this is calling for a class action lawsuit, but I hate that.

Again, you are my friends and I don't think I'd sue a friend, right?

But sometimes friends make mistakes, and I'm giving you, my friends, an option to make it right.

This is what I'm expecting:

1. Written confirmation that you have received this email. If I don't receive a response in 5 business days, I'll consider my request IGNORED. That would be sad. Even worse, I'll think that you are not my friends. That would be really bad. Please don't send me 10 emails. Have a meeting and decide who is going to answer and send me JUST ONE PLEASE.

2 Written confirmation that Facebook acknowledges the obvious fact that the emails sent as reminders are SPAM. (Or Recordatorios in Spanish. That's for Mike S. as I think you speak Spanish)

3. An apology by email. Believe me, I'll make a frame for it to put in my cubicle at my office. An original by mail with all your signatures would be a big bonus!!

4. Very important, a written confirmation explaining in detail the steps Facebook is going to take to stop the SPAM being sent to my account.

5. Facebook must indicate the exact date in which I'll no longer receive Facebook SPAM. Any email from Facebook after that will be considered a violation and I won't bother with more requests after that. I already wasted (sorry, dedicated) two hours to this note. At that point I'll reconsider our friendship.

6. A request for my resume. Hey, you never know unless you ask, right?

My friends, I hope you understand that I'm only authorizing Facebook to use my email address for the purpose of this request.

As you can see, I'm not happy. Or, do I look happy? There has to be a better way to engage the rest of the world to use Facebook, without using SPAM. Perhaps a brainstorm will help to solve that. In my company, we try to keep our customers happy. And I know how hard it is. Again, keep thinking guys. There has to be a better way.

Although this is a private request, I'm making it public tomorrow, November 12th, and your response will be made public as well, so that more people can stop this irritating behaviour of Facebook. I'm sorry, you are my friends, but that's the reality. That's the good thing when you talk to a friend. You can tell him/her with honesty what you like/don't like, right?

I'll edit my email to public only the relevant parts. I'll let you know where I'll post it. I'm I nice guy as you can see.

If Facebook has 550 million users and the average user has 130 friends, I guess the whole world can be benefited with my request.

It was very difficult for me to find an email of someone responsible in Facebook to send this email. Thanks god you are my friends and I found your emails.

Oh guys, and just to consolidate our friendship, I'm sending now to David, Jonathan, Chamath, Sheryl, Ted and Dan a friend request from my Facebook account. Yes, I have one, that I barely use, but for that account I never use this email.

Mark, I tried to send you a friend request, at http://www.facebook.com/zuck, but I guess you are too busy and you can’t accept more friends for now. I understand that. So I sent you a message for now. Same for you Mike (Shroepfer). I coudn't even send you a message. Bret, I'm sending you a message.

Sorry. Mike (Murphy), I found one person only in Facebook as Mike Murphy but I’m sure that’s not you. My apologies, I couldn’t send you a friendship invite. The one I found is in http://www.facebook.com/mike

Lori, do you have a Facebook account? I couldn't find you!! I wanted to send you my resume :)

If you have to come to Toronto, business or pleasure, just send me an email… hmmm bad idea. Just sent me a message to my Facebook account. We can always go out for coffee.

PLEASE NOTE THAT MY EMAIL ADDRESS AND REAL NAME WILL REMAIN PRIVATE AT ALL TIMES DURING ANY PUBLICATION OF THIS EMAIL REQUEST AND RESPONSES.

Thank you,

Your friend,

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Well. I got the usual bot response from the press@ email .

So far no response. Except for the two executives that rejected my friend request.

And, Ooops. I broke my promise. I haven't told them were I post this info. I'm tired now. I'll do that at some point.