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Subject:Re: spam and who you formerly were From:Gregory P Sweet <gps03 -at- health -dot- state -dot- ny -dot- us> To:"techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Thu, 1 Mar 2012 15:35:34 -0500
> Also, if any of y'all can suggest some legitimate-sounding reasons
> for a company choosing not to offer a way to get off their mailing
> list(s)...
>
I'll take a stab at it, albeit a bit indirectly as our messages are not
marketing materials.
The bureau I work for is primarily tasked with providing and maintaining a
secure extranet used to prepare for and deal with the public health
consequences of CBRNE events. One of the core systems is a notification
broadcast system used to send emergency and non-emergent notifications (via
email, telephone, fax, and SMS). Anyone in NYS, have a look NY-Alert for a
similar, stripped down version.
We often get users asking to be removed from the distribution lists for the
non-emergent stuff, especially non-emergent e-mails. We can't do it, if we
did the user would be removed from all emergency communications as well.
Information is not broadcast to specific individuals, but rather classes of
individuals preforming the same or similar function at different places. So
for example not "Dr. Smith, Albany Medical Center", but "Director of
Emergency Department, Hospital" (the hospitals self-identify who holds
which roles).
Since each user specifies what email addresses we can broadcast to, and
what kinds of information can be broadcast to them, we advise users take
firmer control of their contact information and designate different
contacts for each purpose. If they insist on using just one email address,
well then they are going to get everything at that one email address.
Cheers!
-Greg
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