I don’t want email from Comcast telling me about either their partners or their latest, greatest offers.

As their customer you would expect they’d respect my simple request not to solicit me. Check out the creative subject line of their email received this morning at 6:25am: "Notification about Email from Comcast." Stay with me, it gets even more silly.

Now the body of Comcast’s email below, red penciled by me:

#1 - Comcast acknowledges that as their customer I’ve asked them not to communicate with me regarding "offers and promotions." They are calling this email a "service-related email" (see #5) and yet asking me to "Sign Up Now" (#3). Is that a service or an offer or promotion? You decide.

#2 - Comcast respects my privacy and promises to only send essential emails. Is this email essential to my Comcast service, really? It seems more like them reminding me that I have told them that I don’t want them to send me offers and promotions and yet wanting me to sign up so I can receive offers and promotions. If this is a small sampling of their urgent news, I’ll pass, thank you.

#3 - Call to action. A link is not always promotional, but if I’m being urged to buy something or sign up one could argue that yes, that is promotional.

#4 - Comcast appreciates my understanding? Really? Implied consent, I guess. No, really I don’t understand the purpose of this essential service email. Yes, I told them not to send me promotional emails but they somehow feel compelled to remind me that I’m not receiving promotional emails and appreciate my understanding and — by the way — I can "Sign Up Now" not to miss out on future promotional emails.

#5 - Just another friendly reminder in smaller, gray text that this, indeed, is not an offer or promotion, it’s only a service-related email. Did you get that? We appreciate your understanding.

Come on, Comcast, this pedantic email begs to be deleted. Especially with the Sign Up Now link it flirts dangerously close to spam, close enough to put it in the spam category. On the other hand, it’s kind of funny. Thank you for the essential email smile this morning.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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