Comment by arethuza
4 days ago
I've been subscribed to the Guardian for a while and I think that's a bit harsh - yes they offer the cooking app (which I looked at and I don't use) but apart from that the contact from them has been perfectly reasonable?
I think the rest of the comms was triggered by me just signing up. But I would deem that negative, I didn't sign up because I wanted to personalise or deepen my interaction, just to send some cash their way.
For example: On the guardian website when I created my account it defaulted me to on for sending me communications my post, phone and SMS about their products and services and for marketing research. I find that unacceptable.
They offer an "Unsubscribe from all email" button but this is only available in their online settings, if you click on an unwanted email and unsubscribe there, the above settings remain on.
And it was just an example. It's just every time I sign up for something it's not just that, I also have to unsubscribe for a bunch of mailing lists and surveys I never asked for. And go through all the privacy settings and turn off all the crap where they use my information. Sometimes even periodically like on LinkedIn where they keep adding new settings that default to on.
To be fair I did find their subscription process a bit confusing - I think I actually managed to subscribe twice at one point. But since I got that all sorted out I think it's been fine - I mostly use the mobile app (no notifications) and the main website via a desktop browser. I checked my gmail account and I get an email from them on average every 2 or 3 days which is fine as they often do alert me to stuff I am particularly interested in.