Magix website. A moan.

[brianlj]

So, when Magix took over Xara, I decided to let them have a fair crack at interesting me in stuff from their product range. Let them send me a few newsletters, I thought. Seemed only right and proper.

Well, they've had a fair chance now and nothing's caught my interest yet, so I decide to cancel the newsletter. I click the link and...

"System error
You have deactivated cookies.
You must activate cookies in your browser to be able to use the MAGIX Service Center."

<sigh>

No. I haven't deactivated cookies. Your website designer is lazy.

For a start, you're assuming that everybody has JavaScript turned on all the time. Well, as it happens, I *do* have it turned on but, nonetheless, you don't provide any fallback. Naughty-naughty.

And then, you expect that cookie handling is done the way that Microsoft's browser shoddily implements it. Well, I have a different browser. One which uses the correct methods of dealing with cookies and I don't have cookies turned off -- you are simply not using standard methods to deal with them.

Want proof? Look. This is the cookie you sent me:

"support.magix.net
PHPSESSID
5ca30159b7f1d489a9e07a6845fedf29
1970-01-01 00:00:00
2007-10-05 17:55:16
Not secure"

See?

I will now reluctantly fire up IE and visit the Magix site and cancel my subscription to their newsletter and I never have anything to do with them again.

Oh, and why am I moaning in here instead of telling Magix about this?

<sigh>

Because to tell Magix about anything, you have to have cookies enabled...

[The Alien]

I will now reluctantly fire up IE and visit the Magix site and cancel my subscription to their newsletter and I never have anything to do with them again.

You do realize that everytime one "unsubscribes" from a newsletter they pass one's email address to spam mailers, don't you?

[steve.ledger]

You do realize that everytime one "unsubscribes" from a newsletter they pass one's email address to spam mailers, don't you?

This is often true with 'unsolicited' trawling mail. Responding will flag your address as 'live' and therefore likely to get you added to a spamlist.
However Brian 'opted-out' of a newsletter he'd already 'opted-in' to. I doubt a legit company like Magix will simply hand-over his email to a spam lister.

[raynerj1]

That is not as bad as EBay... I subscribed and got a large increase in Spam to my personal email (never got one before subscribing) I tried to cancel, and they wouldn't even pull my name out of there list for 6 months... Don't know if they sell their list or it's just unsecure as heck, either way, they have to be worse.

[pauland]

I think you missed the smiley at the end of the aliens post sledger..

[steve.ledger]

I think you missed the smiley at the end of the aliens post sledger..

Yes I saw the wink, but didn't take it as a tongue-in-cheek emot' - my bad..

I guess I opted on the side of caution by posting clarification for everyones benefit in case other readers became paranoid about the act of unsubscribing from newsletters they'd previously thought to be useful..

[RTK]

An amazing place to harvest fresh email addresses (and to reconfirm them when people come back) for spam purposes, is those e-greetings places. Heck, they get the sender and receiver(s) AND a vague idea of your age group and interest based on the theme you choose.

As Sledger said, I really doubt that legit places sell or use their lists - too much to lose, no?

Couldn't help smiling at Brian's woes - especially considering his avatar. What a horrible design on Magix's part.

Risto

[GeoBen]

to avoid having your email addr distributed like halloween candy, try tempomail FF plugin... when requested for a email address at a site where you do not want to leave you regular one (or are unsure), a right click will pop up a box asking how long you want the temp address for. then it inserts an address that will forward to your real one for that length of time (as little as an hour) and then the address simply disappears. I have been using this for about a year, i think, and have no problems with unsolicited mail or with my address being distributed without my permission.

for what it is worth,
geo.

[RedWombat]

Like Geo, I never give out my real email address to a subscription. I've learned from the spammers to keep my personal one close to the fold. My opt-out is just killing the email address.