Sloan Seymour, President of Ziff Davis, Spammer Extraordinaire
How many complaints does the FTC have to get before they file a suit against Ziff Davis?
In February, Jeffrey asked “Does Ziff Davis’s Spam Damage its Brand?” Both Jeffrey and I could not get off of Ziff Davis’s email list, no matter how many times we tried to remove ourselves. Thankfully, a reader (James) left a comment on June 10th about how he solved this problem:
Hi all,
I found a solution to Ziff Davis SPAM. I spent an hour searching every Ziff Davis email on google and come up with the following list.
info@ziffdavis.com, phil_kramer@ziffdavis.com, kelli_turtz@ziffdavis.com, sandra_gibson@ziffdavis.com, Sloan_Seymour@ziffdavis.com, Martha_Schwartz@ziffdavis.com, Stephen_Veith@ziffdavis.com, Phil_Kramer@ziffdavis.com, angelo_mandarano@ziffdavis.com, lfreeman@ziffdavis.com, chris_maginn@ziffdavis.com, baseline@ziffdavis.com, appscout@ziffdavis.com, larryseltzer@ziffdavis.com, matthew_graven@ziffdavis.com, randy_zane@ziffdavis.com, events@ziffdavis.com, chris_primesberger@ziffdavis.com, opportunities@ziffdavis.com, eWEEK@ziffdavis.com, Debra_Olchick@ziffdavis.com, jeffrey_burt@ziffdavis.com, dennis_barker@ziffdavis.com, mary_hart@ziffdavis.com, gearlog@ziffdavis.com, Sheena_Mohan@ziffdavis.com, askloyd@ziffdavis.com, kristin_holmes@ziffdavis.com, ppereira@ziffdavis.com, debra_donston@ziffdavis.com, Matthew_rothenberg@ziffdavis.com, Evan_Schuman@ziffdavis.com, elda_vale@ziffdavis.com, eric_lundquist@ziffdavis.com, jason_freidenfelds@ziffdavis.com, Mary_behr@ziffdavis.com, john_mccormick@ziffdavis.com, aimee_levine@ziffdavis.com, stan_gibson@ziffdavis.com, Nicholas_mokhoff@ziffdavis.com, dennis_fisher@ziffdavis.com, garcia@ziffdavis.com, darryl_taft@ziffdavis.com, caton@ziffdavis.com, Karl_Elken@ziffdavis.com, barry_ harrigan@ziffdavis.com, andrew_garcia@ziffdavis.com, cameron_sturdevant@ziffdavis.com, chris_maginn@ziffdavis.com, joe_wilcox@ziffdavis.com, peter_coffee@ziffdavis.com, kristin_holmes@ziffdavis.com
This list includes CEO’s, GM’s Managers, Executives and staff thoughout thier SPAM empire.
Send an email to all these people with an email subject similer to:
Violation of Federal CAN-SPAM act of 2003: Request to stop receiving unsolicited emails from ALL Ziff Davis related publications, subsidiaries and websites.
However, don’t be rude or abusive just politily tell them that thier “unsubscribe” links have not stopped thier spam and that they are in voilation of the above Federal Legislation.
I sent off this email with a read receipt, and received no reponsce from anyone apart from:
Sloan Seymour
President, Enterprise Group
Ziff Davis Media
Office: 212.503.4850
Mobile: 917.273.2774
Sloan_Seymour@ziffdavis.comShe apologised, and advisde me I would be removed from all mailing lists. I have happily never received SPAM since
I’m sure you could just email Sloan and help would help you, but the extra emails in the CC feild might add a bit more weight.
Hope this helps other people out there stop the madness.
I followed this advice and was personally contacted by Sloan Seymour.
An Open Letter To Sloan Seymour
Sloan,
Thank you for keeping me off your email list, till now.
How bad are things at Ziff Davis? Desperate enough that you have to insist on sending emails to people who have so angrily opted out?
I suggest you invest a few bucks and buy a few copies of this book for your staff. Make it a requirement to actually read it and practice permission marketing.
By the way, if things are so bad at Ziff Davis, let me know — I’ll happily purchase a handful of copies and send it to you, as long as you never email me again.
You can see from the comments on our post that this is a common complaint. I’m sure you are aware. Please let us know what you plan to do?
Pissed off in the blogosphere,
Bryan
P.S. Below is the previous email thread to remind you of our correspondence.
Related Posts:
Written by:Bryan Eisenberg
Thanks for the tip. And, companies should also note - DO NOT have the “yes I want to receive” (e-letters, special offers, blah-blahh, blahhh) box automatically checked if I’m sending you an email inquiry or question. (And, really, don’t force people to give everything, including fax number, snail mail address and type of company before you’ll even let the email go through your “customer service” contact system. Grrr.)
Oh dear. I feel another blog post coming on.
[…] Ziff-Davis picked the wrong people to spam. Why, oh why is it so hard to understand? People DO NOT want to be at the end of a cold email blast. […]
Thanks for the great information that kind of mail may help as well with other spammers!?
I sent e-mails to their abuse@ and postmaster@ addresses stating that I had unsubscribed via the link provided in their messages, and that the spam continued. I promptly received a letter from their “Online Audience Development Team” apologizing for the inconvenience, and that the messages would stop within 10 business days.
I just found your article above. Seems I am in good company, eh?
I forgot to mention; the spam continues.
I wish I could have had this info several months ago. It seems the spam has stopped now, but unsubscribe links definitely weren’t working until recently.
For the record, I notice I’m on your list … Only I haven’t been at Ziff since May 2006!
Oh, and Sloan Seymour is a he, not a she.
Matthew Rothenberg
VP/Editorial Director
Hachette Filipacchi Media U.S., Inc.
Matthew,
Thank you for the correction. However, I am quoting James’ comment from a previous post and I don’t think it would be appropriate to change his words. He made up this list by looking all over the web for any ZD email addresses (I guess past and current). I am sure things are better at HFM US.
[…] I reported here, here, and here, Ziff Davis spams people. Fortunately, I found this page. It looks like it was the […]