Does this strike anybody else as wrong?

[apeman33]

Get a Yahoo account and transfer all your contacts there. Then delete your Outlook address book. ;D

I had the Internet long before my paper did, so I used a spare small computer I had and hooked it up to an open phone line at work (I never used it more than 20-30 minutes at a time and it was a local number). Since I didn't have a company e-mail address, I used a Yahoo address I created. When our paper finallly did give us our own company accounts, I decided to keep using the Yahoo account because I had over 150 addresses and I didn't want to deal with the hassle of moving them all over. If my company did something like this, they'd have about a dozen addresses, tops, and none of them are my important contacts.

They can't force you to turn over Yahoo or Gmail or Hotmail lists if they're your own personal account, right?

 

[forever_town]

Move all your contacts to your personal e-mail or a private e-mail you create for work and delete all your contacts from the work e-mail. Tell your employer you won't comply. Let them try to mine your e-mail for contacts.

When all else fails, upper deck 'em.

 

[JRoyal]

I'd start collecting the e-mails of everyone who sent a nasty letter to me, then turn those ones over. And even better, when someone calls to complain or ask for a score they could look up themselves or ask you to settle a bar bet, get their e-mails. Save your useful contacts from the hassle.

 

[slappy4428]

****[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

 

[Flash]

Whatever happened to the old saying 'a good journalist never gives up his sources.'

If you have an e-file on your work computer, delete it.
If you have a hard copy of your sources, get it out of the office.
Give them an abbreviated list of people from whom you might get permission to provide their email address ... otherwise, don't give them a damn thing.

 

[Rosie]

This is wrong on so many levels.

Yes, they can go into your Outlook and pull addresses. Are they going to know which addresses are local? Of course not.

Lots of good suggestions on here. I wouldn't hand over a single @ .

 

[mike311gd]

"What's e-mail?"

 

[Hammer Pants]

Add me to the list of people saying this ridiculous, and that you shouldn't hand them a damn thing. I know that's easier said than done when they're signing your paycheck ... so I'd give them some fake addresses or some from people who wrote me nasty letters.

 

[Diabeetus]

Start signing up for every free iPod offer and contest you can find on the net with the e-mail of the circ douche. Pretty soon, his/her mailbox will be too much of a mess to do anything with.

 

[greenlantern]

I'd just give them the e-mail addresses of the people who bombard our company emails with spam everyday.

 

[Rex Harrison]

A few years ago, my former paper gave the news staff hundreds of leaflets to hand out as we reported. As a sports writer, I was expected to hand them out at high school games. I threw them all in the trash. The forms had our names on them so the glass office could track if we were selling new subscriptions. I didn't sell a damn one, and they didn't do a ****ing thing to me.

This new ploy, sir, is bull****.

 

[MU_was_not_so_hard]

Not sure which is worse, but I'll let you guys and gals decide.
A fairly prominent paper in the Southeast has a side site for one of the major schools it covers. That side site is free, but you have to register a real email account that is verified.
The reason this site is free is rather open among staffers: They have been told by execs of the chain (during an in-house presentation) that all those email addresses are being sold to advertisers.
That, to me, is pretty appalling.

 

[VinceG]

Sign up for Internet newsletters with the circulation director's e-mail address, and for good measure, the address of that higher-up, too. Compile resume materials. Bust out the good stationery for cover letters.

I used to do this to a co-worker. When I was at a bar or watching a band, there'd always be someone saying "Do you want to sign up for our e-mail list?"
I came into work one day and another co-worker said, "You wouldn't happen to know why so-and-so is on the list for an 80s cover band, would you?"
"Why no," I said, "Why do you ask?"
And I hear him on the phone.
"I've never even been to Nick's Fat City!"

 

[MacDaddy]

Sign up for Internet newsletters with the circulation director's e-mail address, and for good measure, the address of that higher-up, too. Compile resume materials. Bust out the good stationery for cover letters.

I like this idea. Go to the library and sign the higher-ups to a whole lot of spam. That could be fun.

And make it nice and pornographic.

Singing them up for some magazine subscriptions would also be a nice touch.

 

[WildBillyCrazyCat]

When I was in college, a few friends and I rented an off-campus house. Across the street from us lived a grouchy old man and wife, both in their 50s and inexplicably still living in a college neighborhood.

On more than one occasion, he called the police to break up our parties, which in truth, were really not all that loud.

After paying too many $500 noise ordinance fines, my roommates and I had enough.

We signed him and his wife up for several hundred subscriptions of the filthiest porn magazines we could find. Checked the "bill me later" box on all of them.

Sorry to threadjack.

 

[Trouser_Buddah]

I appreciate all the opinions/suggestions and I'm glad to hear most of you are just as appalled. I'll likely be deleting the 'sources' out of my Outlook after transferring them to my Yahoo account...

I won't hand anything over, unless they push it and 'remind' me to get on the ball... then I'll try to give them as much crap as possible... fun stuff.

I don't know anyone in the newsroom who is on board with this, but I'm sure the circulation, advertising reps and creative services people are all-to-eager to help and put themselves in the running for the 'fabulous' prizes...

 

[Flash]

Oh and in case no one has mentioned it ... work on your resume, too.

 

[John]

Not sure which is worse, but I'll let you guys and gals decide.
A fairly prominent paper in the Southeast has a side site for one of the major schools it covers. That side site is free, but you have to register a real email account that is verified.
The reason this site is free is rather open among staffers: They have been told by execs of the chain (during an in-house presentation) that all those email addresses are being sold to advertisers.
That, to me, is pretty appalling.

Which is exactly why I have a spare gmail account.

 

[lono]

[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]

 

[ZummoSports]

I appreciate all the opinions/suggestions and I'm glad to hear most of you are just as appalled. I'll likely be deleting the 'sources' out of my Outlook after transferring them to my Yahoo account...

I won't hand anything over, unless they push it and 'remind' me to get on the ball... then I'll try to give them as much crap as possible... fun stuff.

I don't know anyone in the newsroom who is on board with this, but I'm sure the circulation, advertising reps and creative services people are all-to-eager to help and put themselves in the running for the 'fabulous' prizes...

Let's face it the prize isn't all that fabulous. But no, this is appalling and it makes me glad that I don't keep an e-mail file at the office.

As others have said, wrong on so many others, but the one thing I had a question about. You said the powers that be said it would be in your best interest to cooperate? What could they possibly do?

Besides it's not your job to sell the paper too.

As far as Rex's leaflets go, we had a similar thing at my shop. Last May, we started this photo gallery side site where we post our photos in galleries so people can buy the photos that weren't the one or two that got into the paper.

You can even put em on mousepads or you may even be able to get one of our photos tatooed across your ass if you're so inclined.

Anyhow, they gave us a stack of business cards advertising the site back when this all started. They're still sitting in the SE's desk. Where they belong.