Online Journalism News

Some well-earned bad press for IT Week

Has anyone else suffered at the hands of itweek.co.uk? Anyone had any joy erasing its poxy email from the face of the earth? Anyone have any worse examples?!

Its emails begin with the assurance that: "We will continue to send this reminder until 25 June at which time we will only send newsletters to those who have subscribed using the new process."

New process my arse. Even if you don't subscribe using 'the new process' you still get the email.

I've been receiving these unwanted emails for nearly three years. The unsubscribe function doesn't work and my email pleas have been equally unsuccessful. I told the editor that for me the name 'IT Week Insider' has become synonymous with irritation and inefficiency - still no reply. What an atrocious way to represent your publication.

I accept, albeit bitterly, the usual deluge of harder erections, cheaper software and winning lottos in my in-box. But email newsletters from professional news sites really need to get their 'ship' together.

And the answer - of course - is to receive all your news and PR material by RSS. It's like a breath of fresh air...

More news from dotJournalism:
Newsletter publishers beware
Spam can of worms
UK to adopt anti-spam measures

Comments? Email me.



Comments

From Michael Osborne, 22:41 18 Mar 2005

I don't think the publishers would like to have to give the true readership figures to advertisers, so good luck on the RSS campaign. I like RSS, I must admit, though I haven't decided that it's infinitely better than email yet (perhaps through lack of experience?).

BTW - if they're sending unsolicited mail this is an offence under the Data Protection Act. If I were you, I'd call the Information Commissioner's office and ask how to make a complaint so that the title is investigated. Better still, start a campaign?

Hope it stops soon, at least I know not to subscribe to that newsletter. It does remind me though - Reuters do the same thing with their news alerts. I haven't been able to stop them in 2 years! Must file a complaint...

From Lem Bingley, 17:09 14 March 2005

With respect to your piece on journalism.co.uk, posted today, I have no record of you ever having contacted IT Week directly to be removed from our circulation list.

Our itweek_letters records go back to 2000 and I have only one email from you - dated today. I have not received anything personally. And there is no record of you having written to itweek@vnu.co.uk in the last five years, so I am not sure where you have been sending your 'email pleas to the editor'.

Nonetheless, I have already asked our circulation manager to remove your name from our database.

IT Week takes all circulation removal requests very seriously. We have no interest in sending content to people who are, like yourself, outside our target audience. We always act promptly to remove addresses when asked to do so.

We have had no other complaints from recipients of the IT Week Insider being unable to unsubscribe. If your story generates response from anyone else who has similarly been unable to work out how to contact me, I will be only too happy to ensure that they too are removed from our records.

Lem Bingley
Editor, IT Week

From Jemima Kiss, 12:42 23 March 2005

Lem's reply to me last week went straight to my junk folder because it contained 'IT Week'...

I've lost headers on some emails as I've changed applications in the past year or so. But a recent check shows that I emailed IT Week's unsubscribe function on the 23 January, 30 January and 8 March 2004. I then emailed 'editor@itweek.co.uk' on 28 May and again in June 2004.

Regardless - the wording of the emails are still misleading: "We will continue to send this reminder until 25 June at which time we will only send newsletters to those who have subscribed using the new process." That simply can't be true because that date changes with every email that is sent out.

Details aside, this is an example of how email often fails both publishers and readers and I'll put it down to the medium, rather than the publication. Which is actually rather good of course.

I'm happy to report no such problems with IT Week's RSS feed...

Tags (click tag to find related articles; click icon for feed):
industry comment |

Sign up here for our free, daily email newsletter to get all the latest stories, jobs, tips and more.

Got a story? Email our news team: Laura Oliver; Rachel McAthy or telephone +44 (0)1273 384290. You can also follow us on Twitter: @journalismnews / @LauraOliver / @rmcathy.

blog comments powered by Disqus