Rant About CDWOW
Friday, March 23, 2007
Once upon a time, before iTunes was invented, I purchased a cd from cdwow. Ever since then they have bombarded me with regular emails. I know I posted about this before, but I'm bringing it up again because now it the time to take action.
My main reason for complaint prior to this was that when you click the link on the email to unsubscribe, it takes you to the cdwow site and you have to know your user name and password in order to log in and unsubscribe. This is not email marketing best practice - you are supposed to make it easy for subscribers to unsubscribe.
I don't know my user name and password and I used to be afraid to retrieve them in case it opens me up to even more of a barrage of emails. This morning however, I decided to succumb, retrieve them and unsubscribe from cdwow hell forever.
Can you imagine my apoplexy when I logged in and found that I was ticked yes to receive cdwow updates and yes to receive offers from partners? I never ever agree to this. Why would anyone in their right mind agree to be spammed? Because that's essentially what it is - receiving emails from companies that you don't know. Cdwow are lying!
Sensible readers will be making sounds round about now that I should simply report this callous breach of my wishes to the Data Protection Commissioner. Well I did and the response isn't that hopeful. Their view is that they can only do something if the email is sent to Irish recipients from an Irish server. So even though cdwow is a dot ie, if they send the emails using a web-based email messaging service based in the US for example, then the Data Protection Commissioners have no jurisdiction. So cdwow can continue to send their tacky emails in flagrant breach of the European Directive on email communications.
What can you do? Send an email to the Data Protection Commissioners requesting them to review their stance on jurisdiction. Ask them to alter their position to investigate dot ie's no matter what server is being used.
In the meantime, I have forwarded the offending email to a helpful person at the commissioners and have requested that she contact cdwow and request a list of their partners to whom my details might have been leaked out. Let's see how complicit cdwow are.
And finally, for all your music needs I recommend iTunes.
Labels: cdwow, data protection commissioners, email marketing