[dangus]

Not sure what the author is bitching about. They’re a one-time series of email messages over 14 days.

They are transactional emails. Maybe the author doesn’t agree with that but they’re welcome to take NYT to court over it.

Is their email provider charging you per email or something?

[mynameisvlad]

What is transactional about a daily message for 14 days? Especially when you haven't made a transaction to trigger said message?

[dangus]

They clearly fit within the definition of transactional.

They are part of the transaction and they are not an ongoing marketing mailing list. They end completely after 14 days.

The author described them as "marketing" but did not disclose the content in any way.

[mynameisvlad]

A transactional message is something like "Thank you for signing up" or "Your password was changed" once per transaction. Hence, transactional.

Regardless how much they and you want to spin it, this is a 14 day marketing campaign. A single transaction (ie. subscribing) should not result in 14 emails sent. And certainly not one a day. By that logic I can send you unlimited emails because you bought one thing from me once and somehow consider all of them "transactional".

[dangus]

No, my logic specifically said that the emails have a defined end and that makes them transactional. You can’t extend my logic beyond my specific boundaries.

I would say I’m not even trying to spin it. For all I know the emails say “here is the user manual for our app” or “thanks for signing up, please enable 2FA as soon as possible.” The author of the blog post never actually detailed the contents of the email.

You define them as marketing emails (without knowing the content) but the company is saying that they are a critical part of the service.

I am basically saying that they have a pretty reasonable legal argument that covers their ass in court because they stop sending them after 14 days and they are directly tied to the onboarding to the service.

How can it be marketing if you already bought the product and people who didn’t buy the product can’t possibly receive the same set of emails?

1. The emails are only sent to new paying customers.

2. They seem to describe how to use the functionality in the service (again, we don’t know exactly because the author won’t post contents, but that’s what the disclaimer message says)

3. They end after 14 days

4. They aren’t sent to prospective customers

[mynameisvlad]

Marketing emails are send to existing and new paying customers all the time, it's exceptionally strange that that is the line you decide to use to determine if something is marketing or not.

Once again, regardless how you want to try and spin it, nobody signs up for a 14 day marketing campaign willingly, and subscribing is in no way shape or form an indicator of said acceptance. Most people would bat multiple eyelashes at any service that claims that is a transactional email and some might even be so put off they don't decide to subscribe or, like the author, are so frustrated that they'll likely unsubscribe because of said marketing spam. That right there is already indicative of how helpful and necessary these emails are.

Not sure why this is the hill you're deciding to die on but this ain't it.

[dangus]

12 million subscribers don't seem to mind. But I guess that is "nobody" in your eyes.

I'm not dying on any hill, I'm just factually pointing out that emails that have a defined end date are by legal definition able to be categorized as transactional.

I must apparently point out again and again, the author of the article never posted the content of the messages so for all we know they are 0% marketing.

[Ekaros]

No they should be explicitly opt-in. With big multi step warning messages. That is least you can do to valued customers.

[havaloc]

And you should have the right to stop them immediately. I don't see how that's controversial.

[dangus]

The CAN-SPAM Act only covers a specific type of marketing email with a specific set of rules. It doesn't cover emails that fall under the explanation that NYT provided.

The author of the blog just didn't accept the explanation.

This would be like if I just wrote a blog post and complained that every company sending me an email about updating the terms and conditions and I just called it "marketing" because I didn't know better.

Which, again, the author never disclosed the content of the email, only their opinion that they were marketing emails, when NYT's explicit description was spelling out the fact that they were one-time transactional emails that end in 14 days.