XStreet Spam

There are people who are banned from Xstreet getting these messages, that is Spam.

They still have a relationship with Linden Labs, no?

I'm not saying they should be doing this, I'm just saying that the term spam is incorrect.

I think it is rather funny. My alt I deleted more than a year ago got today mail from XStreetSL . Perhaps I should look for some potion there, to get her out of limbo and revive that zombie *giggles*. Please contact me if someone wants to buy that virgin soul

And now for some trivia:

The flying lady I use as my avatar in the forums is from Monty Python for which I owe many a great, stoned and dazed laughs on Saturday nights in my younger days.

The term "spam" when referring to unsolicited email is widely believed to be derived from Monty Python's Flying Circus spam sketch from 1970. This was the sketch where every item on the menu in a cafe included the luncheon meat SPAM.

Now that may be worth quite a few $L. The bid for taking Natalie Dylan's virginity is up to $3.8 million!

It actually refers to the chorus of lumberjacks (I think it was) who start chanting "spam spam spam spam" and drown out the actors' conversation. Spam on the recipe wasn't the problem, "spam" drowning out normal conversation was.

I canceled my account voluntarily and I still got the email from XStreet. Funny, I left them and they want me back. PHAT CHANCE!

It depends on how one defines spam. If it is unsolicited, annoying bulk mail, then Ciaran is correct, it's spam.

If you want to get more legalistic, Argent is correct, it's not spam. Generally for the federal and state anti-spam laws (and anti-telemarketing laws), a company with whom you are doing continual business is allowed to send you all the e-mails (and all the telemarketing) that it wants. You are presumed to have consented to it (a garbage presumption).

So you may have dealt with Linden Lab just to have your avatar in Second Life, but now they will use that as a springboard to cram down your throat all kinds of products you didn't want. And it's "technically" not spam.

And how do you even block them? If you try to filter them out to get rid of the XStreetSL promotions, you might miss the e-mail about your account being suspended or something.

(Just like my credit card company telemarketing me all the time. I can't just screen them or hang up on them. I have to waste my time cutting off the telemarketer to ask, "Is there a problem with my account?" wait for "No," and then hang up. I'm so happy Linden Lab is adopting the same annoying strategy.)

Even if it's not annoying, if it's unsolicited, and from someone you don't have a relationship with, and they sent a bunch of it, it's spam. EVEN IF YOU WANT IT, if it's from someone you don't know, and they sent it to 100,000 people who would have wanted it if they'd known how to ask, but they didn't wait for them to ask, it's spam.

Here is the problem I have with the whole of it: I have two, maybe three, accounts that are signed up with XStreet and those same three were at least keyed to Onrez. I'd already gotten emails about the merger from those accounts.

If LL was going to integrate the three, this would have been the best time to show it by having the emails sent only to those that haven't already received previous emails.

I understand that they want to make sure everyone knew what was happening and the "exciting" opportunities this is supposed to offer. I'm just not sure that sending repetitive emails is the way to go.

I think it's pretty clear that LL isn't going to integrate OnRez and XStreetSL. They're just going to shut down OnRez.

They touted that they want to better integrate XStreet with Second Life. I realize that Onrez is pretty much scrap as far as LL's concerned.

But this is LL we're talking about. Botching things up seems a way of business.

I keep reading this "just opt out by clicking the link" business. Oh I know the email from Xstreet/Linden Lab is probably legitimate and that link will not direct me to some malicious website............but for over 2 1/2 years I haven't heard a peep out of Xstreet or SLX. Then suddenly I get two unexpected emails from that web based business that I had actually forgotten I'd even signed up for. And someone thinks I'm going to click a link? Even if it says it's "safe"? Sorry, but no I won't do that. Like I'm sure a real malicious malware/spyware/virus/trojan infectiing website would put the warning "clicking on this link will infect your computer with unwanted, dangerous software".

I'll opt out............but on first receiving the email I treated it just like a do every unsolicited, unexpected email I receive...........immediate deletion (without reading and certainly without following any links related to it.

It's no wonder so many people get their computer infected with malicious programs. "Oh, this is from Xstreet. I know that site but I don't want to receive this junk anymore so I'll follow the link to opt out". That's a foolish thing to do, in my opinion.

Oh, and by the way. All the talk about "is it or is it not SPAM". I think it is but legally it may not be. Whatever it is it's unethical, annoying, inconsiderate, and counter productive. I will never use Xstreet now.............NEVER.

It was Vikings
and they were singing very loodly a song whose words consisted mostly of the word 'spam'.
This was drowing out the discussion between the waitress and the customers about which of the menu items had the least spam in it.

See the sketch here

Thank you. Yes, "Damn Vikings".

I think you are referring to a definition in a US law (the "CAN-SPAM" act).
I'm not an expert on that law, but there is some "preexisting relationship"
clause in there. I don't know what other parts of that law, or other laws,
might come into the mix in evaluating whether this was spam under that law.
There could be subtleties and there could be case law and other factors.
It is generally considered a weak ineffectual law. I don't know about the
privacy or spam laws of other countries where they sent these messages to.
Legally speaking, the CAN-SPAM is not the only thing that determines whether
someone has been wronged in any way: your contract with Linden Lab
may define what rights they have to your email address and its use.

Speaking from a marketing point of view, sending unsolicited commercial
email to a large combined list of customers, past-customers, customers
of acquired companies, and who knows who else...risks annoying and alienating
those people individually and en masse. For a company that has a poor
track record with their public face, it's something to consider beforehand.
This particular trick is unprecedented in the history of company, and it
has been perceived as "spamming", and it is not what the people expected
from their relationship with the company. Whether it was worth it for
Linden Lab to generate all this ill-will is a question that they may have
response/conversion metrics to measure.

Is it likely that people are going to quit Second Life or quit XStreet over this?
Seems unlikely to me.

Spam is in the eye of the beholder.

Certainly they have decided not to operate inside the standard practices
of the industry, which is to not send this (perceived) kind of material to
customers without first having them opt-IN (usually at the time you give
them your email address). Maybe they were in a clumsy rush and could
not take the time to establish an opt-IN system. Or maybe they just
damn well wanted to spam and are arrogant.

It's interesting to wonder why they didn't think that a Linden Blog
post and some login-screen messages would be sufficient to let
their customer base know about the opportunities at XStreet.
We could speculate that they felt it was a way to reach buyers
and sellers who had abandoned Second Life and might be lured
back by the perception of economic (and general) vibrancy.
We could speculate that someone had major authority for the
XStreet project and just went off half-cocked before others
could intervene; previous LL company "Tao" would have allowed
for such random actions, and this would be a consistent example
of those antagonizing inconsistent public relations operations.
Without being a fly on the wall, there's no way to know what happened.

Except the result is obviously that they pissed off a lot of people, again.
And it has sewn a new seed of distrust: Can I expect more spam from
Linden Lab, and what else will they do with my email address?

One could also speculate that they marginalize the opinions of the
people who comment on these (and other) forums, thinking that they
represent a tiny, vocal, troublesome minority of customers. Certainly
it's a tiny minority of customers, and the trick is to comprehend whether
those are representative of anything significant or consequential.
Flaming forum posts are not business trend metrics. Of perceptions,
they probably think that potential customers and business partners
will not pay attention to the things that are written in these forums.

After all, the huge concurrency numbers that they are experiencing
on the grid are working just fine "without a hitch"!

No, the "CAN SPAM" act was pretty much caponised by the Direct marketing Association (DMA). It's noise.

I'm talking about what a *useful* definition of "spam" is. Individual messages from entities you have a relationship may be annoying, but they won't fill your mailbox because you simply don't have a relationship with that many entities... at least not unless you're a big enough wheel that you can afford a secretary to handle it. Oh, there may be occasional exceptions, but very few companies will abuse their customers with a lot of unwanted junk mail. It's the millions of companies that you DON'T have a relationship with that will fill your mailbox with so much junk that you can't find your own email among all the "bloody vikings".

Yes, this is "junk email". And they need to stop it, if only for their own good.

No, it's not "spam".

I keep getting mail from them since the change in ownership. I never got anything from them before. And I think I do not have it checked to allow them to send me stuff.

Everytime I turn around, another item from XstreetSL

They sent it to my account's e-mail. I mean my SL account's e-mail. I do not sell on there, and never bought anything directly through XStreetSL. I never even had an account with XStreetSL. Had one with OnRez.

oh . . . I did have an account eons ago when I was someone else. heh. Still, this is the first time I've gotten an e-mail, and there has been a lot of them. I do not actually recall my account name/password now.

Edit: oh, that doesn't work. I had an account eons ago, but all this spam is addressed to Lexxi.

OK, I found 8 pieces of mail from them in my "junk mail" folder.

That's too much junk email for my liking, and they're going to get a HUGE pushback on this if they keep it up, and they'll deserve it.