All done. One domain, a few add-on domains, databases, email addresses and whatever else lurks in directories all moved – and all I had to do was send my user/pass for my previous host. Oh yes, and update DNS. Very smoothly done. All I need do now is cancel the A Small Orange account.

Hosted now with http://krystal.co.uk/ and many thanks to Tom for doing the work!

Dreamhost is hacked yet again, A Small Orange has forum spam that has been there for 15 hours. I used to be with DH and with ASO obviously going downhill (their main blog has comment spam and if you can’t keep the forums clean which are your public face then what else is going wrong?) (though I did have excellent Support last weekend) it’s time to move to another host.

Just logged in to Twitter for the first time in a long while to see what Apps I had given access and to nuke any I didn’t want. Wow hasn’t it changed – and what a mess it is. Anyway, apps revoked and I logged out.

I get an email from a company that I have never heard from. It’s to my work email and that while not guarded is hardly splashed around. Their Unsubscribe link doesn’t work. I debate yelling on Twitter but then decide to email them from the work address. This is part of the reply:

Thank you for letting me know that our unsubscribe feature wasn’t working for you. I was able to leverage the link from your email successfully, so I’ll have the team research if it’s a browser/version issue.

What utter fucking crap. “Leverage the link from your email”? W.T.F. She copied and pasted my email into her database and found the match. “Leverage the link”. Which school of idiocy management speak did that come from? And “I’ll have the team research” means “It wasn’t us, it was your software”. GMail works for every other site on the planet – what makes you special?

“Also, I’ve taken care of ensuring you’re removed from all future promotions.”

Did you leverage that from my use of the word Unsubscribe?

But I did ask a very specific question:

Where and how did you get my email address from please?

That was ignored. So I have re-asked. Not sure if I have right to know but I’m going to leverage my ability to post here, twitter and generally make a noise about them until I get the answer.

Hah. I’m about to click Publish and this pops up in GMail.

Happy to discuss how marketing and sales typically researches potential prospects and who are the leading providers. When would be a good time to call you?

Did I ask that question? No. And I know how they do it anyway. I just want to know where they got my FULL name and my email.

Cynthia is the VP of Marketing by the way. Aren’t I nice – I haven’t given her full name, the company name or their phone number yet. But they have details on me from who knows where..

My reply was:

Hi,
It seems you have a problem with these 2 lines.

Where and how did you get my email address from please?
I really do want to know.

I don’t want to know anything except this:
Where did you get my name and my email address from?

It’s an easy question and one to which I want the answer.

She’s gone from 2 replies in 6 minutes to nothing for 34. I emailed to ask her if it would be quicker – in case she is busy – to ask on twitter, facebook or LinkedIn. Her CEO might know too.

And again I’m about to click and this comes in:

Hello Mark,

I am truly trying to assist you. I frequently receive communications by sales executives asking me for guidance on how they can target their efforts better. Frankly we get lists from most of the major providers. I don’t have detail on which yours came from specifically, but given that your name and email address are on the web, any provider could have picked it up.

Again, I’ve ensured that you won’t be receiving communications from our marketing efforts in the future. I wish you all the best.

Sincerely,

Cynthia Countouris
VP of Marketing : Accolo, Inc.
415.755.1211 : ccountouris@accolo.com

That makes Accolo a spammer in my book.