American Chemical Society: Spammers

Comments (11)

1. This sort of thing is a plague on the internet.

   Almost every time that I check email at my university address, there are several spams from some group that goes by the name “Newswatch”. I never asked for those, and I cannot think of any reason for them, other than that our society is plagued by parasites.

   I also get a bunch of email from text book publishers, marketing their latest books. I didn’t ask to be put on those mailing lists either. But at least I can see some plausible basis for receiving that marketing mail. But I can’t find any excuse for these “Newswatch” parasites.

   Sorry, not meaning to derail your post. Unfortunately, many organizations seem to grant themselves the privilege of spamming whomever they please whenever they like.

   To get back to the ACS; if they want to consider themselves a professional society, then they should try acting professionally.

2. Are you sure that the spam is actually from ACS or could it be various people posing as being affiliated with ACS? Have you heard of annoying web applications such as the anonymailer (http://www.anonymailer.net)?

   1. The email address is right up there, and I’ve been getting complex and obviously media written releases for a decade or so. It’s PR spam.

3. You could always try reporting them to the ACMA under the Spam Act 2003.

   I’ve found that helpful for telemarketing calls, even those which have originated from non-Australian companies (although the ability to prosecute is severely diminished).

   http://www.acma.gov.au/WEB/STANDARD/pc=PC_310294.

4. I think that it’s also worth pointing out the track record of ACS in opposing Open Access publishing. (e.g., this viewpoint). This seems consistent with the “shill for the industry” aspect, rather than acting as a bona fide scientific society.

   1. I think that pretty well clinches it. So I’m going to constantly cover their scamming behaviour from now on.

      Oh, and there there are the controversies.

5. Dear Professor Dr. Mr. Wilkins John:

   Chemicals are your friends. We at ACS are committed to make sure you get the latest news about exciting new developments in chemical goodness. You may have heard about some of the popular today now cool compounds like H2O, N2O, and NH3. Well, you can look forward to frequent updates about these and related, fun *modern* organic/inorganic adventures delivered to your inbox weekly.
   Register today and we’ll include a free t-shirt with your favorite formula and a picture of Rosalind Franklin silkscreened in your color choice.

6. John,
   I’ve been responsible for science press releases at the ACS for several of the 10 years that you mention, and have never recieved a request that you be removed from our distribution lists. We are very much aware that unwanted email can be a burden and respond to such requests immediately. My apologies, and assurance that we will remove you from further distribution. The American Chemical Society is not an industry group, but a scientific society, the world’s largest with 163,000 members. One of our core goals is to communicate science to the public and that is the basis for our press releases. Thanks, and best regards.
   Mike Woods
   Assistant Director, Science Communications
   ACS Office of Public Affairs

   1. At last. Thanks. I don’t know if your email system is unreliable, or my mail got sent to the spam folder or what, but believe me I have asked repeatedly to have these stopped.

      I worked in academic PR for about ten years. I know that occasional problems can arise, but to put potential writers offside this way is very bad organisation at the least.

7. My snark notwithstanding, I was a little surprised by your initial post, since my cousin is a chemist, a member of the ACS and a officer of her local section. Earlier this year, they had one of their annual meetings right here in So Cal, just down the road from Disneyland. But you never know everything and I figured YMMV. Glad things worked out.

   1. A problem with scientific, and indeed academic, societies is that they are run by, well, scientists and academics. I am a member of a couple of these and they are to an industry-based person, amateur hour. For example, I was on a committee to fix the problems of the society’s online publishing (a field I have thirty years experience in). Nothing happened because everything was argued to death. An entire election cycle has gone past and our report basically says “We were asked to do X. We decided that X was needed” , even though I and others on the committee had outlined a detailed and practical course of action.

      Academics become prominent because they are good at being academics. This does not mean they are any good at organisation or administration of large bodies. Hence, they sometimes hire professionals to do the work who lack a sense of what it is to be a member of the target audience. Something like this is what occurred here.

      It’s a simple thing to set up an “unsubscribe” script – in fact it is mandated by law in most jurisdictions. I didn’t mind being sent the initial releases, but when it became clear they were of no interest to me, in an attempt to lessen the firehose flow of information I get, I asked once, then again, and then many more times, not to receive them. Any PR professional should know that you don’t piss off the guy with the bullhorn. And they did.

Comments are closed.