Wordpress Update and User Policy

I just updated to the latest and greatest WordPress so give me a shoutout if you see anything weird or odd on the blog (Please, no cracks about the content itself, thank-you-very-much).

This particular update was triggered by a recent uptick in new account registration, most of which look somewhat spammy in nature (and in particular one that was trying to look like an Admin account.) So I'm going to clarify my position on new users. Registration is open and it is quite likely that your first comment will be held for moderation. I get an email if a comment is held so I'll usually get to it in less than a day. But if you make an account and then don't make any comments I'll probably delete the account in a day or so. There's no reason to want an account if you aren't posting comments.

My guess is that this accounts are looking for older unpatched WordPress installs and once the spambot involved finds an up-to-date version it just moves on. But if you want an account, try not to look like a spambot :-)

Welcome to the social. For life

So guess who spammed me Friday with useless information about their service that I'll never use? Did you guess Zune? If you did you win!

Gosh I'm so excited to experience the "whole new world of Zune", especially if I can experience one where I can unsubscribe from their goddamn spam!

Actually this time around I may have. There's no unsubscribe link here but when I clicked the "Privacy" link there was a link to "Communication Preferences". Clicking that got me a page where I had to agree to new "Terms of Service" (What. The. Fuck. I can't unsubscribe without agreeing to "Terms of Service" on a service I don't even use, for hardware I don't own?) and then finally I got to a page where I could unclick something about sending me a Zune newsletter. Maybe now it will finally stop. We'll have to wait and see, won't we?

In the meantime I'm still reporting it as spam, because it is. I don't want Zune email, I didn't ask for Zune email, and Microsoft has no legitimate reason to send me Zune email.

Microspam!

Oh look, Microsoft decided to spam me (again)!

Know what you don't see there? You don't see an unsubscribe link! (See this post if you want to see me complaining about the same goddamn thing last September or here's where I explain why I ever even touched the Zune software in the first place.)

So yeah, I reported it as spam to Google. Fucking Microsoft sends emails I don't want about a service I don't use and I can't unsubscribe? That's spam. By any definition.

And you know what? Ever time I see the damn spam I'll blog it. I'm doing my little part to make sure Google hears that if you ever download Zune you get emails about it for life, even if you were tricked into downloading the software under false pretenses.

Microsoft can add all of the "HD" you want to their media player, but as long as they are spamming about Zune I wouldn't even think about dealing with the damn thing. I get email from Apple about iTunes as well, but at least that has an unsubscribe option, like a modern, responsible company.

More Zune Spam!

Notice what's missing from this email?


That's right, there's no unsubscribe link. And before somebody suggests it, neither the "Privacy" nor the "Terms of Use" link leads to an unsubscribe option.

(You might ask why Zune even has my email address. The answer is for about a year or so Microsoft would tell you to install the Zune software in order to stream media to your 360. And in fact Xbox Live accounts are Zune accounts and vice-versa. Of course, my Xbox contact preferences are set for "don't ever contact me for anything". They still do, but I think they limit to service outages and things where they are charging my credit card.)

So, "zune@email.zune.net" met the "Train as spam" keyboard shortcut. Amateurs.

Closing Comments

One thing about the Wordpress blog is that it attracts more comment spam. (Not sure why, it just does.) So I'm closing out comments on a few older entries. For instance in this entry I referenced "Mr. Bipolar Guy" and about once a day now somebody tries to put some spam comment about bipolarity on that entry. (And I suppose maybe now this one, although I think it's probably a matter of whether the post gets any GoogleJuice(tm).)

Anyway, nobody real is commenting on a one year old post, so I closed it, along with a couple of others that were spam magnets. If you want to comment on an old entry let me know, I can always reopen one.