[kaolinite]

This service has been spamming developers, harvesting emails from open source repos and then emailing them, advertising the service. Really not cool.

Even though it looks like quite a cool service, honestly I wouldn't use them on principle.

Here's the email I received: http://i.imgur.com/Kf9Nv3F.png

[yareally]

Was there an unsubscribe link in the email? I've had other annoying services claim they didn't need it, but they were making money off their service, soliciting developers and were in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act.

[kaolinite]

Nope, that's the full email in that screenshot. No unsubscribe link.

[yareally]

Ouch, that's pretty unethical IMHO. Hopefully they add it, since the project owners are reading this thread.

On a side note, I've reported offenders to the FTC for violating CAN-SPAM, but the FTC just sends you a default reply that they don't look at individual reports for violations.

[ahmdrefat]

Yes, we'll add that and we'll take all the CAN-SPAM act in consideration in the future.

[kdawn]

signed up for your site and can't locate your private policy. can you please provide me with a link?

[ahmdrefat]

We've have stopped that once we knew how annoying it was for some people, and that it was agents the law.

And BTW the percentage of the people who replied with "unsubscribe" was very very small compared with the people who signed up and responded with thank you emails.

Anyway I happy you think the service is cool, and we've apologised and multiple times for these emails already, so I'm not sure what we can do more?

[jarofgreen]

> And BTW the percentage of the people who replied with "unsubscribe"

I may be able to help explain this - I didn't get your email, but I get a lot like it for SEO, off-shore freelancing and Android services. I don't bother to reply or click the link because I figure if they do this kind of spam advertising the unsubscribe won't mean anything. I just hit "spam" and let my mail program remove them.

Well done for stopping.

[ahmdrefat]

We were not advertising, we're inviting the hackers to join if they are interested to send they help requests from their communities based on their contributions.

We understand that it's not acceptable by some people and that's why we're going to change that.

[kaolinite]

Well that is advertising. You run the service, you're emailing people to tell them about the service. You phrased it in a way that implied it was doing the developers a favour (and I'm sure that you feel that you are - your software looks good) but nevertheless, it's advertising.

It's also spamming. Harvesting email addresses from people contributing to open-source isn't cool. I'm glad to hear you'll be changing that.

I know it's competitive out there but your app looks good, let it speak for itself. You don't need to stoop this low.

[ahmdrefat]

Thank you for your feedback, and I hope we see you on GitHelp someday :)

[goatforce5]

> we're inviting the hackers to join

I invite you to look at my widget!

I invite you to look at my viagra pills!

I invite you to take this unclaimed money in Nigeria!

[ahmdrefat]

I got what you're saying

[umanwizard]

What is the definition of advertising according to you?

[jarofgreen]

A lot of the SEO spam I get says "This is not spam" in the footer. I'm this close to just setting up a filtering rule that moves all such mail straight to the trash.

Serious question: are you going to stop this or just change it? Some of your other messages are unclear on this point.