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"Email Your Growers"

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Suzanne Geddes

Mar 25, 2015 @ 02:03 PM

Hi Eric,

One of my IT/growers mentioned that we shouldn't send the grower email out listing all the emails in the To: field but they should be hidden in the BCC: field. He said its a violation of privacy and an invitation to spammers. What is your opinion on it and is that something you can easily fix? He sent me this link, https://documentation.mailgun.com/api-sending.html#sending

As always thank you for everything you do!
Suzanne

1. Support Staff 1 Posted by Eric Wagoner on Mar 25, 2015 @ 02:17 PM

   

   Susanne,

   There's already another discussion about this, here: http://help.locallygrown.net/discussions/suggestions/45-emailing-gr...

   This was done intentionally, so the growers can easily have a group discussion by replying to everyone. This is great for small markets with a handful of vendors, but does become unwieldy as dozens of growers join the market.

   I really don't see this one case as a violation of privacy. The growers should be able to contact one another. Why would a grower want to join a community market and not be part of that community?

   In any case, this is something on my list to re-do, but I've not done it yet.

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2. 2 Posted by Charles Sharp on Mar 25, 2015 @ 04:09 PM

   

   Hi Eric,

   I'm the 'IT/Grower' Suzanne referred to...

   First, thanks for ... I'm not sure what. ;) I've seen two references to people thanking you, so maybe you are providing IT support to - the locallygrowwn.net system? for free because you like and support the whole idea of 'Locally Grown'? Or do you just do stuff for Suzanne and the Cumming Harvest community?

   Anyway, I'll thank you too, even though I'm not sure yet what I'm thanking you for... :)

   That said, I respectfully request that you immediately remove my email address from this mailing unless/until you change this to BCC.

   I think a Growers email discussion list is a good idea, but I only participate in discussion lists that provide true confirmed Opt-In procedures.

   I'm a spam HATER, in case this wasn't clear by now... ;)

   Thanks again,

   Charles

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3. Support Staff 3 Posted by Eric L Wagoner on Mar 25, 2015 @ 04:25 PM

   

   Charles,

   I am also very anti-spam. The only people who see your address are the other active growers in the market, and only for group emailings to all the growers. If one of the growers is spamming the other growers, that's something for the market manager to address.

   There is not a way for you to opt out of mailings among all the active growers currently, other than not being an active grower.

   The list of active growers should be a small, trusted group of people. If they are not trusted, that's not something I can correct with software.

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4. 4 Posted by Suzanne Geddes on Mar 25, 2015 @ 04:31 PM

   

   Thank you Eric, I've also emailed Charles to clarify your role as locally grown master mind.

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5. 5 Posted by Charles Sharp on Mar 25, 2015 @ 04:58 PM

   

   Hi Eric,

   I understand, and now that I know more about you, I really do appreciate
   what you are doing, but I guess we just don't see eye to eye on the
   potential negative aspects here - especially the whole *I never opted in
   to this* question.

   As far as I'm concerned, it doesn't matter that my email address is
   visible if someone goes and looks at my profile. That is very different
   from putting it in an email that could very easily be - intentionally or
   not - sent to some other publicly available list where it ends up
   getting indexed by google, or harvested when one of these people gets
   infected with something that then scans their entire mailstore for valid
   email addresses.

   Now I have to decide between being a grower, or having my address
   occasionally sent to hundreds of people I don't know (and probably never
   will), and who knows when one of them will end up doing something stupid
   with it, accidentally forwarding one of those emails to some other list
   that is indexed by google, and then the damage is done.

   This is not good, and I am very unhappy about this. Now I have to decide
   if I will be pulling out of the market this week - and yes, I feel this
   strongly about this.

   Charles

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6. Support Staff 6 Posted by Eric L Wagoner on Mar 25, 2015 @ 06:10 PM

   

   Charles,

   I'm not sure what you mean by "having my address occasionally sent to hundreds of people". There are nowhere near hundreds of active growers at your market. There aren't even dozens.

   You are right that any time your address goes out, you are at risk of having that address forwarded along to address book harvesters and other things that can in the end get you on spam lists. I don't see how the few growers at your market increase those chances for you -- this can happen by sending a single email to a single person.

   You could always have a separate email address that you use only for your grower sales, such as a gmail address. Google can filter out any spam, and you can have that system forward along only the positives to some other address you control.

   The choice to sell products via the Internet is yours, of course. Perhaps with the fight against spam, like global thermonuclear war, the only way to win is not to play. However, I've had the same email address for 15 years, plastered all over the Internet, and I know that it gets thousands of emails a day. Thanks to google's filters, I don't see any of it.

   -eric

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7. 7 Posted by Charles Sharp on Mar 26, 2015 @ 12:58 PM

   

   Hi Eric,

   Ok, so maybe I exaggerated a little, but in my book, 63, while not quite 'hundreds', does qualify as 'dozens'... ;)

   But the total number isn't the point. The fact is, I never agreed to having my email address given to anyone other than the Market Operator(s), and I don't agree to it now.

   Look, I'm really not trying to be difficult, but I'm a privacy freak, and always have been.

   I know that my address is at risk when I send to individual people, but you seem to be missing a very important distinction: I control who those emails go to.

   In this case, you have unilaterally chosen to make this decision for us all, when it is completely unnecessary. There is simply no reason whatsoever for these email addresses to be exposed for this Grower Update emailing.

   Again, there are a lot of email list options out there, many free, so if that was the idea behind this decision, please consider this my strong vote for changing this now, and if desired, provide a real, mail list option, where people can opt in or out at their discretion.

   Now, while I really dislike having to resort to choosing between a) not using the Market at all, b) not using my business email address for operating my business in the Cumming Harvest Market, or c) having my privacy violated, since these are the only three choices available to me at the moment, I decided to do as you suggested and use a different address.

   But while doing so, I discovered another more serious issue that you need to be made aware of and I'm sure you will want to fix.

   I confirmed this with Suzanne, and she agreed it is serious enough that it needs to be fixed, but I don't want to provide any details in a public discussion.

   Please contact me privately so I can show you where the problem is.

   You can email me directly, or Suzanne can provide my phone number if you prefer (I'd rather not post my personal phone number here).

   Thanks - and I mean it - for providing the Locally Grown marketplace, it really is a very cool system, and I'm glad to be able to participate!

   Sincerely,

   Charles Sharp

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