Comment by kortilla
4 years ago
That sounds exactly like what you would send to a mail list management system. Since you’ve likely never used them, think of it like a black box you feed a template that has a bunch of vars you can reference like
“Dear {firstname},
Check out our new movie: Batman Undresses.
Thanks for being a subscriber for {accountlife}.
{termsfooter} {unsubscribefooter} {alternatelanguagesfooter} “
The whole point of a template is so you send to an entire distribution list with a single API call and the mail system handles rendering templates to per user emails, setting up the unsubscribe link, tracking pixels, etc.
> Except they also sent emails to people who are not subscribers
That has exactly zero relation ship to your name being in their mail distribution system.
> That has exactly zero relation ship to your name being in their mail distribution system.
Seems it has some relation after all: If your name isn't in the system, you wouldn't receive the result of the template being applied: Somewhere a bit higher in the code than your example, up among the headers, there's a bit like "to:{emailaddress}".
I mean, what is sending mail to non-subscribers related to, if not the contact data of those non-subscribers being in the sender's mail distribution system?
No, you’re getting confused. An email list management system has far different data than the system that dispatched the fucked up template to it. Additionally, whether or not someone is an active subscriber no impact on them being in the mail system in general.
The whole point is that the piece that screwed up and pushed this template would have no PII access itself.
Beyond it being PII, it’s just how you sanely design these types of mass email/sms/push notification distribution system.