At Adafruit we made a promise, we’re not going to have a newsletter or mailing list that’s any way related or connected to your shopping experience, if we ever do a newseller or mailing list it would something that has nothing to do with your store account and your purchase, a completely different server/site, etc.
When you shop online you gotta give the store your info, it’s not fair for them to use it for other things, so we’re not going to do that, ever.
We’ve never spammed anyone and we want to be very clear, we never will. That’s right, you’ll never get a “sales” or “promotional” newsletter from us, we will never share your email address with anyone, we will never send you “special offers” or anything that you didn’t ask for. We are never going to harvest customer emails and send spam. Your physical address will never be shared or used – you’re never going to get a catalog from us or anyone in the mail because you purchased from Adafruit.
It’s really annoying when you go to a web site and the first thing that pops up is a “sign up for the newsletter” window with a tiny close (x) box you’re forced to click to get to the site. We’re not going to do that either. It seems like anytime you give a company your email address now it ultimately get spammed. It’s unfair to say “join our mailing list” “or subscribe to newsletter” which could mean anything and then you’re spammed forever. Opting out of these later never seems to work and who knows who or where your email address went to. What if it’s a start up company and they’re sold or go out of business? What happens to your information then? Usually more spam or worse.
You never know what’s going to happen, RadioShack has 65 million names and addresses and 13 million e-mail addresses and now they’re maybe up for grabs.
Bankrupt RadioShack doesn’t have a lot of assets left that anyone might want, but one very marketable asset is its mailing lists. Specifically, 65 million names and addresses and 13 million e-mail addresses. In March, RadioShack said that it wouldn’t be selling that information…yet. Now that it’s time to sell off the former company’s intellectual property, all of that contact information is potentially for sale again.
The fact your information is collected at all puts you at risk. I’ve had my information stolen from retailers and they should never have collected it in the first place.
"Dave DeWalt: This isn’t a lack of effort. Most of the large companies are growing their security spend. Yet 97 percent — literally 97 percent of all companies — are getting breached. So there’s a gap here."
"Bill Whitaker: Ninety-seven percent?"
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/swiping-your-credit-card-and-hacking-and-cybercrime/