The 80-20 Initiative is one that claims to want to pull all asian americans as a swing block for voting and is nonpartisan and… well… yadda yadda. That’s great and all, and I’m glad they’re looking to have Asians vote. Sweet stuff. But, it really bothers me when people like this gained my information from who knows where and start spamming me with political things that I didn’t sign up for. (In case you’re wondering why 80-20 is not linked, I don’t find it right in my mind to actually provide linkback to organizations that operate in this mannerism. Why provide them free SEO love?).
Funniest part of this? I haven’t used the email that they’re sending to since 1997. Huh?
A quick search leads me to believe this isn’t the first time this has happened. Apparently there are others that are getting these spam emails.
Having been a technical consultant for nonprofits and having advised a friend that is currently run a campaign, I can tell you that buying email lists with asian names doesn’t constitute support nor does it really make me want to give any money to your organization. In fact, it makes me seriously wary of the supposed “good will” behind this organization in itself. Maybe it’s just me.
I’ll also point out that it seems that my email had already denoted the address as spam, and I’ve looked it up and found that there are some major blacklists that have also added this particular domain to their distributions. Anyone else receive these messages? Perhaps there are supporters out there that would like to comment on why these types of tactics are even used?
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jaehwan wrote:
I think the 80/20 works like any spamming company–they send e-mails to ten million people and hope that 1% respond, or 100,000, respond. 80/20 is a pretty dirty organization led and founded by a guy who pushes the envelope on ethical behavior, and they do absolutely nothing for Asian Americans.
See here:
http://www.thefighting44s.com/forum/showthread.php?t=5319&highlight=questionnaire
and here:
http://www.aaa-fund.com/?p=164
and here:
http://www.reappropriate.com/?p=908
Thinking Asian Americans disagree on different things, but it seems like all of us are united in condemning 80/20.
Posted on 06-Apr-08 at 10:53 pm | Permalink
Efren wrote:
If I remember correctly, wasn’t the 80-20 Initiative set up by Asian American Republicans? I have no idea how the hell I got on their mailing list, but after I put them on my spam list, I haven’t received anything from them since.
Posted on 07-Apr-08 at 12:44 am | Permalink
THE_BANANA_REPUBLIC wrote:
Reaching out to the liberal base remains a more perverse demographic than the conservative one.
Is there something inherently wrong in 1) collecting information to identify a demographic, 2) using this information to cater better political activism?
Posted on 07-Apr-08 at 1:32 am | Permalink
THE_BANANA_REPUBLIC wrote:
Email is a cheap method of communicating and reaching out. Television advertisements make up the bulk of campaign spending. Other methods, such as precinct walking, are hugely consuming of time and labor. With some PACs already stretched to the brink in spending, it becomes clear why this reach-out medium is used.
I suspect the financial cost of paying for the information, and the bandwidth costs of sending out the message meet or surpass the political capital yielded.
Posted on 07-Apr-08 at 1:37 am | Permalink
darkmoon wrote:
Kind of curious actually, since from what I can track down, S.B. Woo while is declared an “independent”, is linked pretty strongly with the Democratic Party. In any case, what bothers me is some of the other stuff that’s written about this guy. Open Secrets claims that 50% of the money given to 80-20 goes directly in his pocket. Not sure if there’s legitimacy in that, but I’m actually not surprised there could be low tactics involved in political play.
Either way? It’s really really low to run email lists without having those people “sign up” for it. Regardless of party affiliation in my opinion.
Posted on 07-Apr-08 at 3:56 am | Permalink
thepeopleseason wrote:
@THE_BANANA_REPUBLIC: “Is there something inherently wrong in 1) collecting information to identify a demographic, 2) using this information to cater better political activism?”
No. There isn’t anything inherently wrong with that, but as the author of the first link in the “others that are getting these spam emails” list, I’ll reiterate my objections.
1. That 80-20 used common spammer tactics to compile their mailing list, such as culling addresses from Usenet archives and blanket sending to matching usernames on one service (say, yahoo.com) to another service (hotmail.com).
2. That 80-20 had the audacity to boast about their sudden “subscriber growth.”
3. That 80-20 is actually getting financial funding as a result of this unscrupulous practice.
4. That 80-20’s list administrator was in no way responsive when I asked to be removed multiple times.
As I mentioned in my post, I have no objections to someone attempting to create a political voting bloc out of some shared commonality, but my money is reserved for people who do so ethically.
Posted on 07-Apr-08 at 9:18 am | Permalink
8Asians.com » Obama campaign needs to lose 80/20: An Asian American/Asian Canadian Blog wrote:
[...] that I can think of. And go figure this out. It’s different from the one that I wrote about back in April on this annoying [...]
Posted on 10-Oct-08 at 8:49 am | Permalink