Interesting…

Yahoo! Mail (which I don’t use…it makes a great honeypot, though) has a button labeled “Spam” that deletes any mail messages and sends them to Yahoo! so they can update their filters.

I found it telling that their e-mail message about their opt-out marketing, highlighted in blue with their red Y! icon next to it, was ignored by the button.

Before people accuse me of attacking Yahoo! for caring about their customers, read some of the actual message:

In March 2002, we began rolling out an updated marketing communications system. Instead of just a single “Yes” or “No” choice, we created a new Marketing Preferences page…When this updated system was first announced in March 2002, we told you we’d begin sending you messages about Yahoo! products and services across all categories, even though you had said “No” to messages under the old single choice system.

This is not responsible e-mail marketing. Many people dispute whether opt-out is acceptable at all. Everybody agrees that once you do opt-out, you should never have to do so again.

Cingular, a wireless phone company well known for its “Rollover” minutes plan and other innovations, has recently started advertising FastForward. The device is a charging cradle for wireless phones. It lets customers seamlessly forward calls to their home phone – just drop the phone into the cradle. Neat innovation – or is it?

Before it merged to become a part of Verizon, GTE marketed its wireless service under the name TeleGo. Pricing for the service was simple: $25 per month plus 25 cents a minute. People today might have griped about the lack of included minutes and calling services, but back in 1996, it was celebrated for its easy-to-understand, fair pricing model.

However, the service’s best feature was its slick simplicity. When a customer was within range of their phone’s base station, the phone acted just like a cordless phone. Calls to either the cell phone or home phone number rang everywhere – and there were no airtime charges for calls made or received within range of the base station. When the customer left home, the phone automatically changed itself back into a cell phone.

Cingular is usually praised for its customer friendliness, but in this case, a clever idea by GTE beat them to it. (Luckily for them, GTE isn’t around to press the issue.)