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Comment by jwong_ | Hacker News Reader

One thing I'd like to vent about is that Scott seems to be making a lot of money selling e-mail addresses.

I signed up for a couple different contests using unique e-mail addresses generated specifically for the contest (Yes, they were separate e-mails for separate contests; No, I did not double-dip my entrees). I was then signed up for 2-3 e-mail lists for 3rd party companies over the course of a couple weeks. These companies weren't even doing anything tangentially related to what Scott writes about(cheap flights). I wish it was more transparent that he was going to sign you up for these random companies.

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Hey, I'm just going to post the same response I used in the IndieHackers comment section for someone with a similar concern. Here's what I said:

"Our subscribers are too important to us to ever sell their information to someone else. We never have and never will sell users information like that. Our only source of income is subscriptions and occasional advertisements in the free emails. Ruining our reputation to make a few extra bucks would be an extremely stupid decision on our end. With that said, we do run promotions with partners where we give away awesome vacation packages (Mexico and Tokyo recently). If anyone signs up for one of these promotions they are agreeing to the terms and conditions, which clearly state that by signing up for the giveaway the email address will be distributed to all of the partners involved in the giveaway (typically 4-5 other companies)."

And their response:

"Thanks for the reply! I looked through my emails and found that the emails started right after I entered a giveaway from you. So that explains it! You're right, it does say for the giveaway offer that you're signing up for emails. Sorry that I jumped to conclusions. It's just that I get a lot of spam and it's very annoying. Also, your partner emails provided no value to me at all."

With that said, it looks like we could do a better job making it even more explicit (which we try to do in the emails announcing the giveaway). We'll work on this on our end and never intended to mislead anyone.

I don't know if you've looked at what gets sent out, but the e-mails sent for the Giveaways are extremely spammy.

I get that you probably added it somewhere in the giveaway text, but from a post somewhere, it was indicated the giveaways were more to garner attention, not as a profit-making venture. It turned me off completely when I started getting those. It gave me a negative impression on both Scott's Cheap Flights and on any companies that started sending me cold emails.

Maybe you can be more selective in your partners, or perhaps work with the partners in what gets sent out. I'm very judicious in what I let get my attention, and seeing these kinds of random sales pitches with no actual value proposition was annoying.

I went back to the giveaway and found the e-mail consent in the tiny text under the consent checkmark for signing up, so I can give you that for having the warning there now. It was not noticed when I signed up, however.

Yeah I hear you. I really appreciate the feedback as well.

We only try to partner with high quality companies. For example this Tokyo one were running right now is with journy, ProductHunt, theSkimm, The Wirecutter, and Conde Nast Traveler. All legitimate companies. It's unfortunate that their emails are seen as spam because that's not good for anyone.

We'll keep this in mind moving forward. Thank you again :-)

I have gotten messages from all of these, and they are complete spam. I'm glad I know it's your fault.

What's done is done, I've unsubscribed.

Oops. One customer lost. Nice way to market your company.

I haven't gotten any spammy messages (or gmail has caught them). I've only gotten emails from theSkimm, which is not in my interests but it looks like they put a decent amount of effort in their email. This one guy's terrible terrible experience is not necessarily indicative of anything.

Again, sticking opposing thoughts into two consecutive sentences does not create a good impression of your business. "high quality companies" !== "legitimate companies".

Perhaps make your user enter their email again... To make it clear they are subscribing and giving their email out?

If I want you to email me, I will give you my address. If I haven't done that, there's no legitimate reason to pay a third party for it. 100% of your partners are spammers.

I bit on that one. The Skimm email was so useless I was offended. It hurt my view of Scott's cheap flights.

What an incredible response, have you not read it yourself?

Is at complete odds with:

"With that said, we do run promotions with partners where we give away awesome vacation packages (Mexico and Tokyo recently). If anyone signs up for one of these promotions they are agreeing to the terms and conditions, which clearly state that by signing up for the giveaway the email address will be distributed to all of the partners involved in the giveaway (typically 4-5 other companies)."

You literally sell their information to advertisers (oh no, sorry, your "partners") to make a buck. Acknowledge it, don't preface it with PR bull. What do you see as the difference between the first and the second paragraph? The fact that you only do it with people entering your promotions? Because that's still your users information.

Yes it's in your TOS, you are still selling personal information to third parties and their unknown partners.

Thanks for putting my feelings into words.

And their partners are extremely spammy at best. They're all trying to force engagement and word of mouth.

Here's an excerpt from one of the intro e-mails I got:

  > Welcome to the #SkimmLife! Here's how it's going to work:
  > We'll meet you back here, in your inbox, bright and early tomorrow morning (PS If it's Friday or a weekend, 
  > you'll get theSkimm on Monday). We're a company that respects brunch, so we won't be with you on Saturday and
  > Sunday. Can't wait? Here's the most recent Skimm
  > Also, download our new app theSkimm for iPhone. It has a service called Skimm Ahead that makes it easier to 
  > be smarter about the future. Never again will you miss moments like when you vote in a primary or when your 
  > favorite show is back on Netflix. Best Part? It can integrate directly into your calendar.
  > Lastly, good things happen when you share theSkimm! (read: winning prizes, swag, being a Skimm'bassador). 
  > To get credit for sharing, use your unique link: http://www.theskimm.com/?r=3cbcb2df OR our fancy invite page
  > to have friends sign up. See how many people listen to you by checking this page.
  > Your morning just got better. Trust us.

edit: formatting

barf

Yeah further down they note: "We only try to partner with high quality companies. For example this Tokyo one were running right now is with journy, ProductHunt, theSkimm, The Wirecutter, and Conde Nast Traveler"

I looked at theSkimm and can't figure out how it's related either. Just seems like an email acquisition bartering scheme.

That's basically what it is.

People who want to grow lists quickly all get together. The smaller lists pay for the prizes, the bigger lists pay with exposure. They all pitch a sweepstakes to their subscribers, all entrants end up subscribed to all lists.. everyone wins (allegedly).

I was talking with a younger relative this weekend who is in college and she mentioned TheSkimm and I immediately thought of this thread. Maybe the younger crowd who spends so much time with social apps and other noise find it highly valuable. There's probably a big distrust for mainstream sources which is not unwarranted.

FWIW theSkimm isn't outright spam - they're a fairly popular super-short newsletter that I think does a mix of world news and lifestyle / culture stuff, apparently marketed at women. I subscribe to Finimize (financial news) and Casual Spectator (sports), and theSkimm is often referenced as a similar newsletter.

Not to diminish the annoyance of being on surprise email lists. I agree it's frustrating, and it sounds like Scott's Cheap Flights should have been more clear with their users about the price of their contests.

The difference is that they're not selling people that sign up with them directly on SCF.

They're using a promotional strategy to solicit signups in exchange for a giveaway (people have been doing this for years). They partner with several sites to promote this so everyone grows. Users are explicitly signing up for the giveaway & those TOS state the email will be distributed to the partners.

They are not selling their current users information to partners.

In other words, you might not like the promotion strategy, but that's a one-off, easy-to-change thing. They are not selling email addresses that they got directly via scottscheapflights.com - which is what the GP was insinuating (a bit dishonestly too).

There's a big difference as what's actually happening can be a strategy that you dislike (and they might as well, depending on the outcome), but what the GP is insinuating is that SCF is actually SELLING the data, is completely incorrectly.

I'm not seeing how the two paragraphs are incongruous. The company is selling their brand, not the user info, when they run the promotions. If no-one signs up for the promotion, no user info gets shared. Ultimately it's the users who choose whether they want to sell themselves as a marketing lead in return for a slim chance at winning.

And these two comments (the parent and grandparent) capture the tension between money and principles. I don't know anything about the insides of your business but we dealt with this crap all the time at Blekko.

Realistically, how many of your customers are going to make a custom email for your giveaway promotions? Its going to be small, and they are 100% going to get spammed and abused by that part of the Internet industry that slams unwanted apps in your face or hijacks your search page for sideloads an advertising rootkit on to your phone. Because that is what they do, they get away with it and make a lot of money at it, and yes they offer you a small piece of the action and all you have to do is give them validated email addresses.

The local Taqueria had a jar that said "Put in your business card for a chance for free lunch, awarded monthly!" and the jar had dozens of business cards in it. I asked about it and the restaurant had nothing to do with it, except that the restaurant was paid by a local recruiter $100 a month to have that jar there.

So one of the Internet scumbags makes a deal with a web site, "Here is a contest you could run which is tangentially related to your web content, all you have to do is run the contest and we'll pay you $x." Free money right? No, it just makes you one of the Internet scumbags too, maybe you didn't know they were going to click jack Grandma's PC but at some level everyone who gets into these deals know there must be some catch otherwise they wouldn't be giving you all this money right?

If you are in the airport and someone says "Oh, are you on the flight to Chicago? My sister-in-law just left for there and forgot this bag, if you'll check it through to Chicago when you get there she will pay you for your trouble. How about $500 ?"

You have to ask; Why is it worth $500 for me to pretend this is my luggage when it would cost less than half that to go to FedEx and just ship it? Why is this person paying me to run a free lunch contest for them? Why is this internet company paying me to run a giveaway contest for them?

At Blekko we tried several times to find the people who weren't scumbags and were actually trying to provide a real service or value to our customers. They may be out there but if they are, they are outnumbered by scumbags at least 1000:1, maybe more.

The only winning strategy was to just not deal with them at all.

> The only winning strategy was to just not deal with them at all.

A pattern I've seen in business is similar: when there's a bad actor who is able to pay exorbitant amounts for user acquisition, but then offers a bad product/experience, it's a losing startup strategy to go compete by offering a better product/experience. Just avoid that particular market / niche / channel entirely.

The bad guys who are paying a super-high CAC and still successfully monetizing it are going to outspend you, and the customers who keep taking the bait from the bad guys have already signaled that they can't be reached.

So anytime you (as a startup) see the equivalent of "quick weight loss pills" being hawked successfully through some channel, and your product is "eat right and exercise," go around that trap and not through it. Otherwise the bad guys will drive you broke as you throw pearls before swine.

The major qualifier here might be that big incumbents, NGOs, or governments should not necessarily ignore these bad guys. Not what I'm saying. Just that if you are a good guy with limited money, attacking a profitable channel dominated by bad guys is a losing strategy.

"ever have and never will"

Except you do.

You're confusing the email subscription terms with the giveaways terms. "ever have an never will" refers to the email subscription. You have to specifically sign up separately for giveaways, and they have different terms and conditions from the email subscription.

Posting this from below because you're making sound as if they're selling emails, when the terms of the giveaway are stated quite clearly.

>Here's a version that's hosted on ProductHunt - https://giveaway.producthunt.com/landing?promo_id=83848bb5-f... > By entering this campaign I agree and consent to recieve emails, communications and promotions from Product Hunt Inc., theSkimm (a daily email newsletter to stay in the know), Scott's Cheap Flights, Journy, The Wirecutter and Conde Nast Traveler.

>You can hate the promotion, but you're certainly not required to join it. And, it's certainly not the same thing as Scott selling addresses of people already on his mailing list.

Another data point: I haven't seen any email indicating that Scott's selling the addresses.

Have you signed up for any of the contests? I think it specifically targets people who entered contests.

Signing up for a contest that SCF promoted is completely different than signing up for the SCF service itself.

Big difference. I suspect you know it too.

This isn't really "selling" email addresses. It seems much more like it's a lead gen strategy that multiple companies are participating.

Providing an incentive to sign up isn't quite the same as sending all those subscribers to the giveaway that didn't opt-in to it?

As a consumer, the relevant word in that sentence is not "sell". The point is my email is being given to someone else, to do whatever they feel with it. Why would I care what in what form the original business is compensated?

Well in that case, by signing up for the giveaway, you're consenting to "giving" your email address to ALL of those companies that are sponsoring it.

So in that case, you should have a nice little talk with yourself about whether the trip you want to win is worth 5 new services having your email address.

Either way, the person making that call is YOU, not SCF (or any of the other companies participating).

Can you show me exact notification on the website where he consented to sharing the email address?

And you REALLY believe that using a search on a site suddenly is enough for your private data to be just given to any shady exploitative company on the planet? You really want to live in a world where you're badgered constantly and without pause by ads, scammers and phishers just because you want to use the internet?

Yes,

Here's a version that's hosted on ProductHunt - https://giveaway.producthunt.com/landing?promo_id=83848bb5-f...

Specifically, you might be interested in this text right before the big "enter" button:

> By entering this campaign I agree and consent to recieve emails, communications and promotions from Product Hunt Inc., theSkimm (a daily email newsletter to stay in the know), Scott's Cheap Flights, Journy, The Wirecutter and Conde Nast Traveler.

You can hate the promotion, but you're certainly not required to join it. And, it's certainly not the same thing as Scott selling addresses of people already on his mailing list.

As for this:

> And you REALLY believe that using a search on a site suddenly is enough for your private data to be just given to any shady exploitative company on the planet?

Using your words, can you show me the exact phrasing where that is happening anywhere in this example?

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