Keep it to Yourself!

What in the world would give DeepDiscount.com the idea that I upon visiting their web site, would want to be startled, by George Strait's voice suddenly and uninvitedly "welcoming" me and asking me to buy his new CD?

I have whined about this in the past, but apparently my wisdom has gone unheeded.

And it isn't just me. Ken Magill, writing in the latest issue of Direct magazine, hilariously details his experience with "one of the most ignorant e-mail campaigns in the short history of the medium":

It came in the form of spam from Bing energy drinks, pitching delivery service to offices in Denver.

It's bad enough that the receiving e-mail address is not used for commercial purposes — so the address was clearly harvested — and that Direct's offices are in New York.

Clicking on the unsubscribe button spawned a pop-up window that had audio.

A friggin' surprise talking pop-up window in my cubicle.

"Hey, this is Jeremy from the Dom and Jane morning show and I want to tell you about a product I've been using for a little while," said my computer out of the blue. "It's called Bing. It's a brand-new energy drink that's out there, and it's made from black bing cherries, hence the name."

Magill concludes:

Message to marketers: Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should. If you want to make a sales pitch on my computer, especially the one at work, please shut up unless I indicate it's cool for you to talk.

I would extend that advice to webmasters as well.