BBC spam article featuring aff sites

[max99]

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[Supercod]

Cheers for the support guys. I would like to think that BBC News will try and do a story that is based on facts with regards to the whole issue of spamming, this article and video they have produced can’t have done anything to make the general public aware of why and how they end up with spam, however I am sure it’s sold a few copies of the McAfee software on the back of it. I do find it funny that we get BBC webmaster team trying to get stuff listed on Free UK Stuff and UK Competitions all the time from various departments and regions.. wonder if one of them sent an email saying these guys are dead nice always listing our things for free sending us loads of traffic, should do a story on them and this is what we got, cheers for rubbishing us!

[philhancox]

Outrageous stuff. Quote from the missus: "even I know the difference between spam and newsletters". Bless her.
Complaint sent.

[aotagain]

Not the first time they've disgraced themselves in attempts at 'journalism'. Bizarre how variable the quality of their stuff is. You should get some redress from that - lets hope its a 'front-page' job, not a back page.

Why don't they do something useful like illustrating examples of the really dangerous phishing and pharming emails that wreck people's lives. There's a new one of those every week or so and they're getting more like genuine emails all the time.

'BBC affiliates in one week strike shock' would make a nice headline ;-)

[aotagain]

I don't know if this is supposed to be accessible on the net but found it just now:

<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/guidelines/editorialguidelines/advice/liveoutput/howtodealwithas.shtml">BBC Editorial Guidlines</a>

[Andy10]

Hi Clarke, another depressing example of BBC getting it totally wrong.

I thought I should point out that the BBC does usually offer the right to reply and is, in the main, open to pointing out problems in previous reports when they go over the story again... which they will do.

What you could do is contact the journos or production team who made it and present them with a media angle that they could use in any follow up story, or maybe even as a brand new story.

This angle could be about those companies who are wrongly named as spammers, damaging their reputation, by individuals or organisations who have actually signed up to a site and asked for more information. Would be a good story and many big firms would get their chance to talk about the whole confusion in this area and how more explicit rules need putting out by the authorities.

Keen to try and get over that sending legal letters or complaints will do very little to help (because the BBC is notorious for ignoring these), where as engaging in communication with them could maybe lead to a story in which you or your brands feature in a really positive light.

Hope this helps, sorry it is a bit long winded :-)

[Supercod]

Thanks to everyone that complained and wrote a blog post about it. If you have not already pinged my blog to it’s listed in the article please do so, or go on the article and write a reply back with a link to your blog posts. The BBC is investigating my complaint (thanks to your other complaints) and has read my blog and is reading what all the other blog linking to it are saying. The video has been removed from the article but as you know it’s still doing the rounds on the internet so not the end of the matter and the BBC have promised to be in touch early next week to hopefully resolve it fully.

What was interesting was they had already found and read my blog post before they called me, and I had not told them about it, goes to show you blogs do have the ability to get the message across.

[bapages]

You might want to contact McAfee to make sure they do not include your site as spam address during the next round of updates.