Don't send me a message to tell me I have a message

Dear PSD2HTML.com and every other noreply@domain.com email sender,

Sending me an email to tell me that I have a message with a link to actually read the message is unforgivably bad design.

I don't want to:

  • interrupt what I'm doing to leave Gmail
  • look up the randomly generated password that you assigned to me
  • learn your user interface for attaching files and formatting text (in the unlikely event that you even support this).

Switch to email.  Trusted since 1971.

You're not anonymous. I know your name, email, and company.

This is a repost of my original post on 42floors.com.

Sumit Suman recently visited a site, did not sign up for anything, did not connect via social media, but got a personal email from the site the next day.

Here’s how they did it.

I’ve learned that there is a “website intelligence” network that tracks form submissions across their customer network.  So, if a visitors fills out a form on Site A with their name and email, Site B knows their name and email too as soon as they land oan the site.

It all started 2 weeks ago when I got a promotional email (anonymized to avoid promotion) offering to

discretely integrate with your existing web site to identify visitors to your website.

I get B2B marketing emails all the time but what caught my eye was the inclusion of a report snapshot for 42Floors.com showing names, companies, and emails of site visitors and the information seemed plausible.

I was both skeptical and concerned so I replied to the sales rep and asked how they could identify 42Floors’ visitors without something like an email link click-through.  His reply was forthright:

Note the last sentence:

For example, if [a visitor] went to XYZ.com and filled out a web form and then [the visitor] later visited 42floors.com, [42Floors] would be able to identify [the visitor] by name/email as well as company details even though [the visitor] never filled out a web form on [42Floors.com].

I was still skeptical.  So I signed up for a demo account and installed (and hastily removed) the tracker .  As promised, I began to see personally identifying information about our anonymous visitors.  Here are the live reports from this week (sidebar).

Although only a small subset of users were identified with an email, that is likely due to the fact that this particular network is one of the smaller ones and hence only has information on a small percentage of all internet users.  I will be following up with an analysis of the reach of their larger peers.

Expectations of privacy
When a user visits a site without ever having voluntarily supplied information to that site, should the user have an expectation that their identity is private until they chose to reveal it?

A real-world analogue would be this scenario: You drive to Home Depot and walk in.  Closed-circuit cameras match your face against a database of every shopper that has used a credit card at Walmart or Target and identifies you by name, address, and phone.  If you happen to walk out the front door without buying anything your phone buzzes with a text message from Home Depot offering you a 10% discount good for the next hour.

Farfetched?  I don’t think so.  I expect to see the first iterations of this Home Depot scenario become reality within a few years time.  All the necessary pieces already exist, they just haven’t been combined yet.

It’s inevitable, it’s going to happen, but it shouldn’t
The realization that I’m being personally identified by name as I surf the net is deeply discomforting.  At 42Floors, we’ve made the decision not to use any visitor identification tools.  As for my own Macbook, I’ll probably write a browser plugin ala AdBlock to kill the trackers that make this identification possible.

An unfiltered list of every startup idea I've had in the last 5 years

Whenever I have a startup idea I send myself an email with the subject “IDEA: {description of idea}” and gmail quietly archives it into a buried folder.  

The list is pretty short from 2007-2010 when I was running SFI. After the acquisition closed I was looking for another startup idea; this led to a lot of what Paul Graham calls sitcom ideas -- plausible enough to sound real but terrible, nevertheless.

Verbatim email subject lines below.  I've added italics if edited in any way.

2007

  • Dating site aggregator
  • Sell zip code database and address validation API
  • Online-only payroll processing
  • Virtual tech support using remote computer takeover
  • Email sorting based on algorithm of past reading history


2008

  • Web-based platform for creating and monetizing online training
  • Plugin to convert all commercial links to affiliate links and route savings back to the buyer
  • CheapFrames.com
  • Plugin to auto-apply coupon codes (retailmenot, private coupon upload)


2009

  • Airline travel consolidator with all carriers: Southwest, usa3000, Airtran
  • Evaluism.com (test coding skills)
  • Apartment search consolidator
  • App to locate police cars integrate with radar scanner


2010

  • Crowdsource business docs: legal, will, human resources manual, training, etc.
  • Crowdsource custom painting
  • Apartment design app with library of 3d, photorealistic models of IKON and store items
  • Copier pricing engine
  • Sell cheap las vegas clubbing clothes
  • Video property finder – what's it like
  • Insurance price engine (August 21, 2010)
    • This idea became Leaky.com, which Jason Traff and I cofounded in September 2010 and joined YC S11.
  • Truck price engine
  • Course GPA History
  • Virtual car dealership
  • Clone of network info whois db
  • Health insurance comparison pricing engine
  • Forgotto.com – yell at me when I'm not doing something: reminders for lazy people
  • Remember sites over time (Commercial Wayback engine)
  • Facebook app and browser plugin combo that saves original resolution photos

2011

  • iPhone app to discover friends installed apps
  • Combine Clicktale, Clicky, and Olark
  • Online reputation management (embed on Craigslist and eBay postings, a sort of BBB ranking for real people)
  • Automated site redesign A/B testing with matching Adwords automation
    • This idea became Redesigner.com. Redesigner was a short-lived pivot after Leaky.com was cease-and-desisted by Progressive, State Farm, et al.


February 2012 - July 2012
This was the period of funemployment post-Leaky, pre-Redesigner-shutdown, pre-42Floors when I was actively trying to come up with ideas.  The bar was set low.  Some ideas are downright illegal, others are merely embarrasing.

  • Compare property mortgage payment to rental value using Airbnb data
  • Hidden record NFL games to reconstruct the all-22 game footage
  • Election tools e.g., poll email reminder, auto phone call ala zocdoc.com
  • Agency that redesigns websites and ad campaigns and only takes money if performance improves
  • Service to convert unvested options in publicly traded companies into a basket of S&P500
  • Service to keep you active in social network... auto comment, say happy birthday, prompt you to email certain people
  • Put in address and see price for all available phone, internet, TV providers
  • Tool to get everybody in your company to promote your products for SEO... facebook likes, Twitter mentions, etc.
  • SEO ring... you write up five companies and five companies write you or give upvotes for youtube videos, facebook likes, etc.
  • Pay sites to include a script that will watch for form entry with name and identify that person by cookie so person can be identified
  • Should-i-go-solar: input address and site will auto estimate (w Zillow and Google earth) the size of roof and then you can adjust coverage sliders
  • Climbkeeper – uses GPS to track climbing routes just like ski tracker
  • Super hi rez always-on video cameras in climbing gym that people can use to show off their climbing moves
    • I did a lot of climbing and skiing during this period; it was awesome
  • Travel planner (e.g., planyourthailandtrip.com) that starts with a checklist that you fill in as you plan your trip: flight, taxi to hotel, hotel, events, and you can book through site
  • News app that tailors articles to what you've read like to read
  • Better embedded zip store locator
  • Home school using iPads and ACE curriculum with ability to get live help and essays graded by human oriented to muslim or evangelical christian students
  • Datetherealme with required Facebook profile
  • Guys shopping site by look with narrowing scope e.g., too boring, more blue
  • Make a shopping list, orders from cheapest option  or tells you where to get it
  • Ads that contain personalization space so site owner can insert name of user without giving user data to advertiser
  • Cameras at gas stations check for warrants
  • Rate my startup idea (hot or not for startups)
  • Roommate agreement checklist and monitor
  • Control bot of twitter, google review, yelp accounts for SEO voting
  • Pricing tool for ebay... curves of what your item has sold for in the past and current listings
  • Tivo capability (record and suggest shows) for online video
  • Speed test my website... how long does it take me to do X versus a competitor; could do ring voting to suggest improvements for site with keyword extrapolation
  • Long term car rental negotiator
  • WriterAccess without the anonymity
  • Better brightroom.com


Lastly, I also emailed myself ideas for one-day hackathon projects.  Here are those:

  • Twitter overshare
    • I built this during Angelhack: overshareme.com.  I'm amazed, but it actually has 2 users.
  • Movie drinking game generator
  • Tron (IE – chrome virus)
    • This one requires a little explanation... it would install Chrome, apply a theme to make Chrome look like IE, copy bookmarks, uninstall IE, and delete itself.
  • Iwanna do this (find people who want to play split-screen Xbox or go hiking right now)
  • Database comparisons (real-world scenarios for Mongo vs Redis etc.)
  • Watch saturday morning cartoons (recreate the experience of watching cartoons for a specific date in childhood including commercials)
  • App to make each letter play different musical notes on iphone instead of click
  • Plugin to call to remind about google calendar appointment
  • Monitor Techcrunch for mention
    • I ended up just writing a script to do this while we were having lunch waiting for our Techcrunch story to go live on Friday

I've heard it said that ideas are cheap.  Not so.  I'd empty my bank account in a heartbeat for one good idea.