Question About Privacy At R2R

[rtparty]

You're definitely entitled to your opinion.

What I dislike, and I find WAY shadier, is vendors that already have your info, and sell it to others.

To me SBB is just using technology to its advantage to try and make their business more successful.

Just because they are trying to be more successful doesn’t make it ethical or correct. What they are doing is beyond wrong even if “legal”.

They are obtaining email addresses without your knowledge and then sending you an email that you never asked for.

If I GAVE my info to a company and they sold it, that’s on them. At least I gave out my info voluntarily.

 

[Fish Fan]

Guys there's been so many replies here since I was last able to check in, and I appreciate all of them!

Keep in mind that when I started this thread my main concern was that my information may have been obtained through R2R, which it was not. Now this thread has devolved into opinions about how businesses use our information.

@VintageReefer - You know I value your opinion very much!
@billyocean

I get that SBB has a good reputation as a coral vendor, but after this kind of thing it is going to be a very, very long time before I would consider using them.

I get that this is how business are running these days, but it doesn't make it right, it's not ethical, and what happened to me is simply illegal; you cannot add an address to a marketing email list without their consent.

Just because Opensend *claims* they are abiding by all the laws, does anyone really believe that from a company that mines our data?

I'm glad at least *most* in this thread seem to feel the way I do.

Thanks again for all the replies and help!

 

[Fish Fan]

Same vendor and I am considering action.

What action could we take? I'm all ears! They don't even have a Google or Yelp page where I could leave a review. I tried the FTC, but nothing will come of that.

 

[BryanM]

For all the people that don't like what SBB or Opensend does, you should probably get off the internet then. It won't stop anytime soon, if ever.

Try and set do not track, try adn use brave or another browser that tries to help with this, etc, etc, but it won't stop, and SBB is just one out of thousands of companies with an online presence that uses this type of technology to build leads and increase their business.

 

[rtparty]

For all the people that don't like what SBB or Opensend does, you should probably get off the internet then. It won't stop anytime soon, if ever.

Try and set do not track, try adn use brave or another browser that tries to help with this, etc, etc, but it won't stop, and SBB is just one out of thousands of companies with an online presence that uses this type of technology to build leads and increase their business.

That’s a poor excuse for being unethical. Well everyone else is doing it!

What’s even more telling here is that SBB wasn’t even going to be forthright about the whole thing until R2R pressured them.

I can’t think of one other company I get emails from that I didn’t give my info to and TOLD them they could send me emails

 

[Fish Fan]

That’s a poor excuse for being unethical. Well everyone else is doing it!

What’s even more telling here is that SBB wasn’t even going to be forthright about the whole thing until R2R pressured them.

I can’t think of one other company I get emails from that I didn’t give my info to and TOLD them they could send me emails

I could not agree more, especially about how they were not even going to answer me until R2R got involved.

Everyone can say this is the new normal, but what happened to me here has never happened with any other company in my decades of being on the internet.

What if we got signed up for every website we just simply visit? Every news site you read an article from would now be in your inbox, every website you visit to just check out a product or service would be in your inbox. If every random site I went to sent me an email, my in box would be flooded with garbage I don't want.

But that's not happening. One and only one company stole my email address (and who knows what else) and used it for their marketing campaign (and did who knows what with the rest of it).

I call shenanigans!

 

[Lyss]

Guys there's been so many replies here since I was last able to check in, and I appreciate all of them!

Keep in mind that when I started this thread my main concern was that my information may have been obtained through R2R, which it was not. Now this thread has devolved into opinions about how businesses use our information.

@VintageReefer - You know I value your opinion very much!
@billyocean

I get that SBB has a good reputation as a coral vendor, but after this kind of thing it is going to be a very, very long time before I would consider using them.

I get that this is how business are running these days, but it doesn't make it right, it's not ethical, and what happened to me is simply illegal; you cannot add an address to a marketing email list without their consent.

Just because Opensend *claims* they are abiding by all the laws, does anyone really believe that from a company that mines our data?

I'm glad at least *most* in this thread seem to feel the way I do.

Thanks again for all the replies and help!

Not sure what country you may be in -- most countries do require explicit opt-in, but in the US I believe the CAN-SPAM act only requires that there is a clear way to opt out on the email. But if this business is sending emails outside the US as well as in the US, to stay within the law they should be using a broad explicit opt-in approach b/c other countries do require that. So in the US you can send email marketing w/o explicit opt-in, but honestly you really shouldn't do that b/c it's just bad marketing practice.

The US does have explicit opt-in for marketing text messages. That falls under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act.

 

[BryanM]

The omnipotent google claims 79% of online companies track private user data.

I'm bowing out of this convo now, people have strong feelings on this, warranted, and thats fine.

I'd do some more research and adjust your online habits accordingly if you really want more privacy. SBB isn't the only one doing this, far from it. The data we're talking about is extremely valuable, and profitable.

I have no fewer than 5 different personal email addresses to help try and address this for me. They are all for different purposes. Personal, forums, banking, etc, etc. Guess which one gets the most spam? Forums. The least? Personal. But I am diligent about not cross polluting these, and very few people have my personal email address.

 

[spsick]

As another data point, I have also NEVER received an email from a website I visited without providing it. It would be an immediate swerve for me if I did. I use Firefox, with DuckDuckGo for a search engine.

 

[Fish Fan]

I'd do some more research and adjust your online habits accordingly if you really want more privacy. SBB isn't the only one doing this, far from it. The data we're talking about is extremely valuable, and profitable.

In the many decades I have been using the internet, only one company has stolen my email address and added me without my permission to their marketing email list from only visiting their site one time, for just a few minutes.

 

[SBB Corals]

Hello Everyone,

We want to take a moment to acknowledge that we have been closely following this thread and genuinely appreciate all the feedback and concerns that have been shared. Please know that we are carefully considering everything, and we will provide a more detailed response soon. First and foremost, we sincerely apologize to anyone who may have felt offended.

There is one important point I’d like to address, particularly regarding the comment about our company being "shady." Anyone who knows us can confidently attest that we are far from being shady. We take pride in being completely transparent when asked any question, and at no point have we withheld any information. We had a customer service representative handling direct messages through their own R2R account, and the message was directed specifically to them. This is why I did not personally receive the original inquiry regarding how we obtained the information. Had I seen it, I would have responded immediately with the same explanation I provided to R2R. When R2R reached out, I promptly offered to contact the member directly and provided a full explanation. Unfortunately, our customer service team did not notify me about the DM in question, and we only became aware of it when R2R brought it to our attention.

Please rest assured, we are not trying to hide anything. We are committed to transparency and maintaining open, honest communication with all of you.

Thank you for your understanding, and we will be in touch soon with further details.

 

[Fish Fan]

There is one important point I’d like to address, particularly regarding the comment about our company being "shady." Anyone who knows us can confidently attest that we are far from being shady.

Thank you very much for your reply here, I appreciate it.

There is one important point I'd like you to consider: I don't know you. And your actions here and the way I've been treated can only be described as shady, from my point of view.

I implore you to please reconsider your use of Opensend.

Thank you again for your reply!

 

[VintageReefer]

I imagine there's a couple bots that push those page numbers up. Hard to know anymore. It'll get worse too.

There may be some bots that post links to items on sales but the majority of the thousands of posts is a SBB community and we are treating his threads as a private forum / chat room.

I’ve made some good friends in there and learned a lot. I help out others. Joke around. It feels like a bunch of Reefing buddies of all experience levels and we just hang out chatting about tanks, and what Sbb corals we are getting next, and showing off pics of corals we own.

Sbb also encourages us to post and talk about sales and corals from other vendors and there is no competition or shaming - we the buyers + Shane at Sbb appreciate all corals and he frequently is liking and commenting positively on other vendors sales and corals, or corals we get from other vendors.

 

[HomebroodExotics]

There may be some bots that post links to items on sales but the majority of the thousands of posts is a SBB community and we are treating his threads as a private forum / chat room.

I’ve made some good friends in there and learned a lot. I help out others. Joke around. It feels like a bunch of Reefing buddies of all experience levels and we just hang out chatting about tanks, and what Sbb corals we are getting next, and showing off pics of corals we own.

Sbb also encourages us to post and talk about sales and corals from other vendors and there is no competition or shaming - we the buyers + Shane at Sbb appreciate all corals and he frequently is liking and commenting positively on other vendors sales and corals, or corals we get from other vendors.

Perhaps the marketing companies that he uses has their own personal bots or employees designed to show demand for corals? Again it could be something he has “no idea” is happening you just pay a company to magically make you more money. The future of marketing is here and it’s not very nice. And I’m not saying he does this. It’s just something I think about when I see several 5k plus comment threads and it seems unusual. These tactics can be used by any company now unfortunately as well.

 

[VintageReefer]

Perhaps the marketing companies that he uses has their own personal bots or employees designed to show demand for corals? Again it could be something he has “no idea” is happening you just pay a company to magically make you more money. The future of marketing is here and it’s not very nice. And I’m not saying he does this. It’s just something I think about when I see several 5k plus comment threads and it seems unusual. These tactics can be used by any company now unfortunately as well.

I’m in the threads from page 1 to page xxxx

It’s almost non stop active chat from members, some games which i suspect are not run sometimes, and on some days there are also links to corals as they get marked down. But I can tell you the live users posts significantly outnumber the occasional coral link.

I leave for a few hours in a sale week, come back and I’m 20 pages behind. I’ll read all 20 pages and some pages have a few coral links and some pages don’t and then the rest is real-time chat from forum members.

I like the coral links also, they aren’t overbearing, and when something gets marked down and you combine that with a 40 or 50% code, the pricing then is very very good, and I wouldn’t know about it because I’m not on the website constantly refreshing looking for a price drop.

The games I think contribute though - one quiz question will have 10 responses from 10 people, then comments about whose fast and slow, then the answer, then we congratulate each other. The games last about a hour or less and a lot of pages are added in that time. Don’t like the games just come back later, it’s back to regular coral and tank chat

 

[Stang67]

What action could we take? I'm all ears! They don't even have a Google or Yelp page where I could leave a review. I tried the FTC, but nothing will come of that.

I am looking into it.

 

[Stang67]

The omnipotent google claims 79% of online companies track private user data.

I'm bowing out of this convo now, people have strong feelings on this, warranted, and thats fine.

I'd do some more research and adjust your online habits accordingly if you really want more privacy. SBB isn't the only one doing this, far from it. The data we're talking about is extremely valuable, and profitable.

I have no fewer than 5 different personal email addresses to help try and address this for me. They are all for different purposes. Personal, forums, banking, etc, etc. Guess which one gets the most spam? Forums. The least? Personal. But I am diligent about not cross polluting these, and very few people have my personal email address.

Your missing the point. They emailed my dad.

 

[VintageReefer]

AFAIK there is the 10DLC laws which were pushed to prevent PHONE marketing solicitation. A company can not call or text you with marketing offers unless you opt in. Huge fines if they do.

I do not think anything applies to email or spam email wouldn’t be as much of a problem as it has for the last decade or more

 

[VintageReefer]

Your missing the point. They emailed my dad.

You used his computer to access the web and that comes with cookies, tracking, information gathering, and now your eyes are opened to the latest marketing technique. They aren’t the only ones and that doesn’t make it ok, but its the world we live in, and digitally it’s constantly changing and advancing

 

[ingchr1]

...What I dislike, and I find WAY shadier, is vendors that already have your info, and sell it to others...

So essentially Opensend?