Damn Email: Too valuable for your own good.
Today on "Things I learned", I continually find out email, when it wants to, will 'eff you up.
Mind you, this story rant is riding on the coattails of a cold I've recently picked up, which means I'm a little more sassy with a glass half-full mindset.
PSST: Email, if you're listening (reading,) I love you. It's not you, it's them. People are taking advantage of you and your awesomeness because behind you is a person. And that person has a value tied to it. The more persons, the more value. The more value, the more for potential 💰💰💰. All this abusive nonsense is causing kerfuffles all over the place and I don't like it so I must rant about it. Again my cheery disposition has been waylaid by this cold. Forgive me.
🎵 Everybody in the club gettin' emails 🎵
Prior to this exuberant mood with which I am now infusing into my brooding pondering, I saw a LinkedIn post from Ron Dorsey pointing out how painfully obtrusive email collection is (hopefully y'all can see it, but the image shared below pretty much sums it up.) I found the juxtaposition of an article cautioning readers about sharing their email address against that same publisher's request for an email address hysterical. But at the same time, it's painful.
If I were to see this for the first time today, I'm pretty sure my first reaction wouldn't have been, "HA! The irony!", but would have immediately started with a low and furious mumble through gritted teeth.
Ultimately the problem boils down to data. With data comes knowledge ... and power. The power to influence. To drive action.
That doesn't mean all influential things are negative. There can be real positive actions and change that come from it. Heck there may not even be a life-altering "help the world change," but if it brings happiness to someone in some form with good intent, that's all good too.
What I'm focusing is the influence driven by greed and the abuse of communications and the abuse of trust.
Yep, I said it. I'm calling it out! I told you I was cranky.
🎵 Been caught stealing, your E-MAIL. It's mine, mine, mine, all mine! 🎵
Just today I received an email that just had me say, "What the?! Are you out of your damn mind?"
Exhibit A:
If you don't know me or the company I'm currently employed by, I run the Deliverability team. My company focuses on email verification. I am not tied to the automotive industry in any way. Nor does my title suggest that NOR does the company's name suggest that. It's so far from even pretending that I could be a lead, my level of being miffed has skyrocketed. Side note, I have had people reach out about kickboxing as a sport...that still is unwanted, but at least I can pretend that it makes more sense.
My email address is not public, to my knowledge, so when people email me that I do not know I immediately know they got my email from somewhere not above board.
So how does my email get out there. Someone bought it. From whom they bought it, I can't say with certainty, but in the past I have been told it was from places like ZoomInfo. Where does ZoomInfo get it? They could have bought it or mined for it by testing many iterations of my name using my company's domain to see which ones get delivered. It's those behaviors (trying to identify an email address to build a list) that give email verification a bad name.
Testing to find an email address isn't the only thing address miners do, but I won't name them for the sake of decency. I lied, I will! MWAHAHAHA! I'm cranky, remember? They use site scraping, dictionary attacks, sending blatant spam, buying data, sketchy "partner" or affiliate collaborations, probably do some questionable site cookie stuff too, and more. They want all the emails and then they want to sell them or sell access to them.
It's why I can't seem to get away from these cold emails. And because my email exists, it must be mailed. Because it's a numbers game. The more you mail, the more likely you'll hit one. And they will. It's just a matter of time. And with large curated lists, it doesn't take much time.
🎵 Do you really want to collect me? Do you really want to SPAM me? 🎵
I came across Tommy Boy the other day and had to stop to watch it. I can't help it, that movie makes me laugh every time...especially the scene when The Carpenters' SuperStar comes on the radio. There's a scene nearing the end when the character Richard bemoans their situation and says "Fish in a barrel, my friend." Well, OOF!, ain't that the truth. People are the fish, email is the barrel.
Email surrounds us. Even those not in the email world know how important email is. It's a core communication channel and it even moonlights as a task management, document repository, historian, and more.
The world, at least the West, relies on email. Most services require an email and if you don't have one, you don't get as many benefits (even if they are free) or you have to work harder to get what you need. You can't open accounts without it. You are asked for an email to join rewards programs. You need an email to make a reservation. Email is collected for shopping, both online and in person at checkout and through the POS systems. Email is needed for digital downloads like whitepapers or access to studies and articles. Even free services ask for your email.
Alison Gootee had a great post on consent and what it means to her. I believe in industry chats (or somewhere else, but I can't for the life of me find it), she also shared her thoughts that email is asked for too much. The question she posed was along the lines of "Do you really need their email?"
🔥🔥🔥
PREACH!
🎵 You don't know your worth. All the things I know that you deserve. 🎵
Email has become ubiquitous. I'd argue that we take it for granted, perhaps forgetting how much we rely on it (until there is an outage). We quickly give out our email to every site we can...do we really have a choice? And do we even notice anymore? Do we understand the value of our inbox as users?
For now, we trust email and those we share our email address with. Plus, we're in a rush (because time is everyone's enemy) and everybody else has it, so why not? Heck, I get annoyed for having to spend time filling out camp forms. Why would I spend time meticulously looking at privacy policies and terms of service for the many, many online activities I have. Or go out of my way to get what I need the long way.
When I get an email, do I check to make sure it's legit or question if I gave consent? I already have so many emails flooding my inbox, do I really want to sort through the hundred I received today, let alone the hundred I received each day this week? I do actually do those things, but I'm sure it's not a typical activity for most email users.
I don't know who said it first, but one has to choose between convenience and security. You can't have both. People like the easiest/fastest route ... perhaps humans are just hare's in disguise ... and will gravitate to that choice first. Unless of course they are forced to be a turtle.
So we struggle between deciding if we dare act as a consumer of things or a consumer of nothing (the latter being an impossible task.)
🎵 Everybody plays the fool, sometime. There's no exception to the rule. 🎵
How we use email makes it so attractive. A must have for marketers. It represents the username for logins, the main identifier in data systems and because one email address is likely a person's main account, it ties a person's life together, including all the things you may not realize about yourself.
It's alluring for senders to have more emails on their list, more readers, more potential wallets, more people to share (assuming you do a good job otherwise RUN AND HIDE). But that same alluring quality makes it dangerous ... for the email owner. It's why data collection and processing has been and is being written into laws, such as: GDPR, CASL, and CCPA/CPRA.
Besides inundating a mailbox to where it could be abandoned (or not because now mailbox providers are helping to sort through that "I wanted this at some point, but now there are so many" emails with tab features and categorizations), there is the annoyance factor because the sender or content is no longer relevant, or worse it's just a scam.
Even with our best intentions, it's easy to fall for schemes. In a future blog, I might write about a client of mine that was phished for their credentials. For now, consider the 76-year old that lost his retirement savings. Or the Bay Area Executive that lost her life savings when trying to purchase a house. OR do you know how many data breaches there have been this year? You don't even need a lot. One alone is significant. AT&T's data breach impact over 70 million accounts!
Heck I just got a note from a company about a data breach and I was impacted. Last year I think I got 2 or 3 notices for myself alone and then some for my family. Data is valuable to the companies legitimately using it AND to the attackers that find ways to connect data points (including your email address) to other services. They can use that to develop phishing attacks or to try to compromise other accounts by using the information they now have at their fingertips.
🎵 Get up on this! Protect it good, protect it REAL good! 🎵
Our data is everywhere and email is the conduit to abuse. Those collecting it for the greed, focus on volume. And unfortunately, even those that may not be looking for the greed angle fall into the "mail more for more!" mentality. Often a lot of senders can get away with that. But not all. It's probably why I'm hearing from others and seeing my clients experiencing that things are just harder now. And by things I mean the inbox.
Quality and purpose are underrated qualities of an email marketing program. I hope they make their comeback. I hope the greed for email addresses for legitimate senders can subside and focus more on purpose and how there should be an osmotic relationship between sender and recipient, where value is attained by both.
The desire for collecting emails (and stealing data) will not go anywhere and bad actors are gonna do bad actor things. But I do love email so that I hope we can ride on this momentum of protecting the inbox via the renewed wave of sending best practices/recommendations championed by (yes, I'm about to drop the word I was trying to avoid, but it's "so hot right now" that I can't avoid it) Yahoogle.
So knowing we can't (at least not quickly) change how the system is working, we instead can focus on how WE are working. So, report spam and file complaints if someone is abusing your inbox (may need a separate article on how to do this to have the biggest impact.) Be wary of what you interact with. Learn about email headers and how you can use them to better identify mail. Protect your email. Don't fear sharing, but be mindful of where you share it. Protect it. Use an "+" alias if you can. That allows you to see who is using your email and if it's shared with/sold to others. Create secondary inboxes for mail that won't disrupt your life if you don't see it. Perhaps keep your most prized accounts better protected with unique addresses for each of them. Then if it gets compromised, it's faster to replace and shut down or limit it's use and not impact other important communication streams.
It's annoying and redundant and users shouldn't have to do this. But, alas, bad actors ruin it for everyone.
Damn you email. I love you. I wouldn't hate how much I need you if it wasn't for those exploiting you.
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If you're wondering about the songs I was singing in my head when I was writing the headings...
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