Yep, sounds like the same email I got. Both groups lost points with me, and I was pretty sure that I wasn’t the only one who thought that.

Got the same one. It looks like we’re on their news mailing list now. From the headers, though, it appears that one could unsubscribe using mailto:Sxsw-request@adaptivepath.com?subject=unsubscribe. I haven’t tried it, though.

I just emailed David Rose, the contact listed at the bottom of the privacy policy, the following love note:

— — — — — —

David:

I received the below email today, which is advertised as being sent to me as a member of the SXSW registrant database with your permission (and to my unique SXSW address), and I am writing to express my *extreme* displeasure about this.

At no point did I give you permission to give my email address out; nowhere in your privacy policy do you state that it’s even a possibility that my data is going to be shared this way. I’m disappointed that people such as yourselves — ostensibly, good neighbors on the Internet, and knowledgable about the way that people feel about wholesale, unauthorized sharing of data like this — would do this, and I wanted to make sure that (a) you understood this, and (b) there is **NO** chance that you will be sharing my email address with any other companies, individuals, or concerns for the purpose of marketing something to me.

You may want to reconsider the policy of sharing email addresses on the whole; I’d be surprised if I’m the only one who is upset about this, and I can tell you that there’s little chance I’ll give you a working email address next year if this is how it’s going to be used.

Please let me know what happens with this, and how [name omitted] was able to get access to the email database in the first place.

Thank you.

I’m not wild about it, either, but at least it was from Adaptive Path and not SuperSucker Asian Sluts or something, which I seem to get a lot…spam, that is.

I knew people were gonna bug out over this, but I generally don’t care too much about spam. Part of the reason is because I protect my email address, like this.

Okay, not really.

You’re one funny little bastard, Anil.

Didn’t they have a raffle for a copy of The Veen’s book? I didn’t drop in a business card, specifically because I didn’t want to “opt in” to any mailing lists they were assembling.

(That, and I didn’t have a business card.)

Jason, are you sure Anil likes to be called little?