Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Genealogical Spam?

Lately I've been receiving some "newsletters" from a company called AncestorStuff.com. [I am not going to make the link active for reasons which can be deduced from reading the remainder of this post.] I've been to a number of national conferences and never recall seeing them at one of these conferences. (That doesn't mean that my memory is not failing me, but I really don't recall seeing this company present.) According to their newsletter which offers mostly publications which one are available from Genealogical.com, they are headquartered in Dover, Arkansas. Since they are located in the same state as this year's FGS conference, I would expect to find a legitimate company listed among the exhibitors for the Little Rock conference. Were they on the list? No. The "slight" discount they are offering (for one title it is about 3%) is not worth the risk of doing business with what appears to be a company of questionable reputation. I've located comments on this company dating back about 5 years calling into question their "spamming." The general consensus seems to be that this company harvests e-mail addresses of persons interested in family history and "spams" them with their newsletters. I think I'd prefer to do business with a company that I trust. I'm more likely to trust a company which exhibits at a national conference. Spamming me with unsolicited e-mails advertising products (even products in which I may have an interest in purchasing) is not going to cause me to purchase them from a company about which I know nothing.

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