Magill
Stupid Debate Watch: A Lame Defense of Net Taxes
Joe Weisenthal over at Silicon Alley Insider last week published what superficially would seem to be a reasonably compelling argument for Internet sales taxes...
Stupid Political Watch: Umm … You’re Welcome … I Guess
Another week, another stupid political e-mail, this time from Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, chairman of the Democratic Governors Association, thanking me for a donation I never made...
Stupid Bureaucrat Watch: College Threatens over Initials in E-mail
Santa Rosa Junior College in California is reportedly threatening legal action against students and faculty with private e-mail accounts that use the college’s initials in their construction...
Stupid PR Watch: She’s Hot, so Interview Her
I received last week one of the most unprofessional leads to a PR pitch ever to have appeared in my e-mail inbox...
Stupid Magilla Watch: Getting a Reader Smackdown
A piece I wrote and published in Direct’s Newsline and Magilla Marketing last week seriously pissed some readers off and they weren’t shy about expressing their irritation with me...
New Questionable List Firm, New Ties Emerge
Yet another questionable firm touting e-mail lists has emerged and evidence indicates it may be related to EmailAppenders, a firm several marketers have accused of ripping them off...
Stupid Political Watch: Announcing Hillary Spam!
Recently, I received an e-mail from New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, the woman who took Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat when Clinton vacated it to be Secretary of State...
Permission Marketing 10 Years Later
Ten years ago this month, Seth Godin published what many marketers at the time considered to be one of the most cockamamie books they had ever read...
Smart Marketer Watch: Pizzeria Uno Gets it Right
Folks, I’m about the stir up the biggest controversy this newsletter has ever stoked...
Stupid PR Watch: ‘While We’re on the Subject…’
In an unusual move, Ford Motor Company last week put out a statement debunking a spam e-mail that has apparently been making the rounds ...
EmailAppenders Disappears Again
Less than a month after reappearing as eAppendersWeb.com, EmailAppenders has seemingly disappeared again...
ValueClick Wins One for Marketers
A Los Angeles court has thrown out a $45 million lawsuit against ad firm ValueClick and its subsidiaries, agreeing that the action filed under California state law was preempted by the Can Spam Act...
Four Email Appending Firms Using the Same P.O. Box
At least four e-mail appending and list-sales firms are claiming or have claimed the Houston P.O. box as their U.S. headquarters...
Stupid Marketer Watch: Doggie Designer Electroshock. Yay!
Add to the list of marketers unwisely sending customers e-mail marketing messages without permission Canine Fence, makers of the original Invisible Fence...
Stupid Media Watch: The Nigerian Super Scammer
An utterly confused article about Nigerian 419 fraud that ran in Barron’s last week led with an eye-popping stat: “An updated version of the Nigerian letter scam is making the rounds, and has already tricked 13,500 U.S. victims out of as much as $40.5 million"...
Lawbreaking E-mail was One-Time Mistake: 1-800-PetMeds
A letter arrived via FedEx last week from 1-800-PetMeds’ corporate lawyer Alison Berges. The letter was in response to an article that appeared here recently criticizing the marketer for sending an unsolicited e-mail ...
Stupid Quiz Watch: The Results are in!
More than half of Magilla Marketing readers think it’s fun to watch a no-talent, bitter, fat, loudmouthed trade-hack reporter fall into an alcoholic tailspin and ruin his career...
New Appending Firm Surfaces
Another e-mail appending firm has surfaced with troubling contact information on its Web site...
Message to Readers: About Our E-mail Practices
There has been some chatter in the marketplace about my publisher, Penton Media’s, e-mail marketing practices. In the interest of transparency, I decided to share them here...
EmailAppenders Gone? New Firm Surfaces
It seems EmailAppenders has disappeared. And at the same time, a previously unknown company has emerged pitching at least one marketer on e-mail lists...
Stupid Research Watch: Spam Has a Carbon Footprint? Pshaw!!
In what has to be the most laughable e-mail-related studies in history, Internet security firm McAfee last week published a report claiming that spam is a major contributor to greenhouse gasses...
Stupid Idiot Watch: eROI Blogger Slimes Magilla
Marketing services provider eROI’s vice president of sales and strategy and official blogger, Dylan Boyd, published an ignorant, professionally insulting post about me on TheEmailWars.com that needs to be addressed...
Shouldn’t We be Beyond This?
A comment left after a recent article in Magilla Marketing perfectly illustrated that this newsletter’s work is far from over...
Ouch! Best ALT Tag Ever
We all have bad days. But one graphic artist for a co-op advertising firm apparently had a really bad day and it showed up in an ALT tag in one of his or her company mailings ...
Stupid Marketer Watch: Wow. How Cool … And How Illegal
And the latest example of e-mail marketing stupidity comes from 1800PetMeds. I visited 1800PetMeds.com a few months back to inquire about heartworm, flea and tick medication for our two new Labradoodles, Willy and Woody...
Stupid Political Watch: Republicans Spamming Part II
Every time I write a piece on political e-mail and publish it here, I brace myself for the inevitable backlash from people who think they’ve spotted some bias one way or the other...
Stupid Political Watch: Republicans Spamming
Republicans are apparently passing e-mail names around like party favors. Yeah, yeah. Puns suck, but I couldn’t pass that one up...
A Call to Managers: Cut the Nonsense
What is it about human nature in the workplace that makes those who have a little power crap all over those who don’t? ...
Stupid Campaign Watch: Re-branding Nigeria?
Nigeria has launched a campaign to clean up its image as the 419 scam capital of the world. Dubbed “Re-branding Nigeria,” the campaign aims to improve Nigerian citizens’ perceptions of themselves and the rest of the world’s perception of the country...
Penny Stock Scammers: Oops, Wrong Address
What’s the one thing a penny-stock pump-and-dump spammer shouldn’t do? Why, send their scam e-mail to a staff attorney at the Securities and Exchange Commission, that’s what...
Ken Magill's Columns are now Email Essentials, and run by editor Sherry Chiger - Don't miss a minute of the Email Essentials Newsletter! Subscribe to Email Essentials here.
