Internet and e-mail policy and practice
including Notes on Internet E-mail


2013
Months
Jul

Click the comments link on any story to see comments or add your own.


Subscribe to this blog


RSS feed


Home :: Email


22 Jul 2013

E-pending in real life Email

The other day I got an odd flyer in the mail, sent from Singapore, advertising a $1,000 six volume reference set about wellbeing, which is apparently an academic subject these days. (Click on the label to see the whole thing.)

This is a rather odd thing to arrive in my mailbox, since it is not a topic in which I have ever shown the least bit of interest. But a little squinting at the label reveals what happened.

It's addressed to Prof. John Levine, University of Pittsburgh, at my home address (which is not hard to find, but is irrelevant here so I greyed it out.) While I am not a professor at the University of Pittsburgh, an unrelated guy with a name similar to mine is indeed a professor of psychology, a field which seems a lot more relevant.

So clearly someone in Singapore found his name on a list, Googled the name, typed in the first address that showed up, which was mine, and sent a flyer halfway around the world to the wrong person. The result they got for paper mail e-pending was just as bogus as the results people get from e-mail e-pending. (Is this p-pending? s-pending?) Whatever it is, it reminds us that bad marketing is bad marketing in any medium.

Attention marketers: I am not this guy either, nor am I one of the authors of this paper, even though I happen to know some of the other authors.


posted at: 23:53 :: permanent link to this entry :: 0 comments
posted at: 23:53 :: permanent link to this entry :: 0 comments

comments...        (Jump to the end to add your own comment)

Add your comment...

Note: all comments require an email address to send a confirmation to verify that it was posted by a person and not a spambot. The comment won't be visible until you click the link in the confirmation. Unless you check the box below, which almost nobody does, your email won't be displayed, and I won't use it for other purposes.

 
Name:
Email: you@wherever (required, for confirmation)
Title: (optional)
Comments:
Show my Email address
Save my Name and Email for next time

Topics


My other sites

Who is this guy?

Airline ticket info

Taughannock Networks

Other blogs

CAUCE
It turns out you don’t need a license to hunt for spam.
4 days ago

A keen grasp of the obvious
Italian Apple Cake
562 days ago

Related sites

Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail

Network Abuse Clearinghouse



© 2005-2020 John R. Levine.
CAN SPAM address harvesting notice: the operator of this website will not give, sell, or otherwise transfer addresses maintained by this website to any other party for the purposes of initiating, or enabling others to initiate, electronic mail messages.