Comment by nobody9999 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nobody9999 | Hacker News Reader

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>For sure. If that was true the answer would be "charge the non-app users a nominal fee to cover the cost".

>Invasive tracking is the point, not the cost. It's anti-consumer.

The last (and likely the last) time I went to an MLB game (not the Dodgers), perhaps six years ago or so, I was required to install a smartphone app when I purchased my tickets, keep that app on my smartphone for before and during the actual game. In the several months after buying a ticket and seeing the game, I received no less that 100 spam email messages (I was required to provide an email address as well) from the team's "partners."

What's more, not only was there no option for a paper ticket, if I left my seat during the game to get food/drink, I was required to have my smartphone and present my "ticket" via their app to security personnel when I returned to my seat. Every time.

As I said, even though I was (and am) a life-long fan, I will never go back to the stadium to see a game. It was far too invasive and inconvenient.

Edit: I'd add that I couldn't even block emails (which I routinely do at the server for other emails) from those "partners" because there were emails that were required to obtain my tickets. That isn't me not wanting to "learn" something, that's me not wanting to receive multiple spam emails every day from the same source.

Protip: always use plus aliases when signing up for things like this. Use a unique plus alias for everything you sign up for (the convention I use is e.g myemail+yourcompanyname@mydomain.com). This convention lets you be sure exactly who sold your info when the spam comes, based on the to address, and it also lets you easily block email from that source after you've got your tickets.

The only downsides are that sometimes it doesn't work if their shitty form verification insists that the plus character isn't valid in an email address. In those cases I tend to set up an actual mail alias (yourcompany@mydomain.com), but that's an annoying extra step - pluis aliasing is simple, requires no configuration, and works everywhere. But this is pretty rare. And if you're using it to sign in to things, you'll want a password manager so that you can remember what plus alias you used for each site.

Don't misunderstand me - I'm not defending the behaviour you're posting about - it's reprehensible and I wouldn't have bought tickets at all under such a system. What I'm offering is a way to make it more manageable for people who don't want to go without things that you can only buy under these user-hostile models.

>Protip: always use plus aliases when signing up for things like this. Use a unique plus alias for everything you sign up for (the convention I use is e.g myemail+yourcompanyname@mydomain.com). This convention lets you be sure exactly who sold your info when the spam comes, based on the to address, and it also lets you easily block email from that source after you've got your tickets.

I don't use "plus aliases." I don't need to. I've owned my own domains for just about 30 years, so I just use <whoeveritis>@mydomain.com and then block any emails that start spamming or are just annoying.

Protip: Host your own emails so those greedy scumbags can't cut you off whenever they please, leaving you unable to access all the crap you authenticate through your "plus aliases"

Edit: N.B., I appreciate that you brought that up. Some folks may find that useful even if I don't. That said, I still say folks should host their own email if they have the resources (minimal) and inclination (less so).

So in other words you could have easily blocked the spam emails you were complaining about after the first one arrived.

Regular aliases are fine, but they're more difficult to set up. And don't work everywhere.

I do host my own email. But not everybody has the knowledge/inclination to do so. Which is fine if that's their choice. Plus aliases work for those people too.

>So in other words you could have easily blocked the spam emails you were complaining about after the first one arrived.

That's not what I said at all[2]. In fact, I said[0]:

   I was required to install a smartphone app when I purchased my tickets, keep 
   that app on my smartphone for before and during the actual game. In the 
   several months after buying a ticket and seeing the game, I received no less 
   that 100 spam email messages (I was required to provide an email address as 
   well) from the team's "partners."

I also said[1]:

   IIRC, agreeing to receive marketing emails was one of the terms of installing 
   the app which was required to use the tickets.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47671480

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47678895

[2] And yes, I know you're being a trollish jackass, but I have a little time to kill this morning, so lucky you. That's all the feeding you're gonna get. Now back under your bridge!

I'm being a trollish jackass?!? Fuck off. I posted a helpful tip - for you and for others - on how you can avoid the bullshit you were whinging about, and that you specifically claimed you couldn't block. You replied with condescending trolling pointing out how amazing you are and how you don't need my advice because you run your own email, as if that's some amazing achievement. What it does mean though is that, as I pointed out in my last message, you could have easily blocked the trash email you were whinging about once you had your ticket, making your whinging about it entirely redundant boo-hooing about nothing.

  > I also said[1]: IIRC, agreeing to receive marketing emails was one of the terms of installing the app which was required to use the tickets.

Uh-huh, sure, you pointed out, after I had posted and in a different thread that I haven't looked at since, that you theoretically agreed to receive spam according to a shitty set of T&Cs. I'm not sure how this is relevant to managing/blocking said spam? Or your assholish response to my attempt to help you?

Oh noes! They might cancel your subscription to their shitty app that you have explicitly stated you don't want! Maybe they'll call the police! I mean, you have your tickets and have been to the game already and have said that you don't plan on going to another one, and there's no way they could detect that you'd blocked their mail, so the net effect on you for violating their T&C is vanishingly unlikely to ever be anything other than zero, but sure, whatever, keep receiving that ridiculous volume of spam because you theoretically agreed to it, I guess?

Surely there's an option to unsubscribe from marketing emails. Did you try? It's highly illegal not to have that.

>Surely there's an option to unsubscribe from marketing emails. Did you try? It's highly illegal not to have that.

IIRC, agreeing to receive marketing emails was one of the terms of installing the app which was required to use the tickets.

No matter. I just corralled that spam in a folder and ignored them (which is how I knew how many -- >100 -- I received) for the couple of months I had the app installed.

Once I attended the game, I uninstalled the app and told my mail server to reject any emails (with a permanent/"User Unknown" rejection error) to that email address and deleted the folder.

I probably should have filed suit against MLB for coercive licensing of their app. Which would likely be finishing up around now, seven or so years and tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of dollars in lawyer fees later, so the court can tell me that I have no legal recourse.

But I didn't. Mostly, I'm sure, because I don't have your keen legal mind. Why don't you try that and let me know how it works out for you. The actuarials say I should live another fifteen or twenty years, so I can wait. Do tell.

I think you are not remembering correctly. The app does not require you to receive marketing e-mails. It can't supersede law, and it does not in my experience.

Unsubscribing from marketing e-mails does actually work. It's vastly simpler than trying to filter, reject, etc. And this way you still get the actual important emails. Like when an event gets cancelled, or other important information.

You don't need to get all snarky. Just consider this a learning opportunity.

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