MLB spam
MLB.tv is a cool product, but MLB.com does some things that really peeve me.
First of all, I received this random e-mail from MLB.com the other day.
In what way does my subscribing to MLB TV mean I want to receive Staples ads from MLB? I don't remember giving them my consent to sell my e-mail address off that way. And what's the relation of office products to major league baseball? Really not cool.
Spam e-mail is not as bad as spam snail mail, but one law I'd love to see passed for real world junk mail, like the three million credit card offers I'm sent each day, is a requirement that on each piece of snail mail the company from which the spammer purchased your name must be listed. Something like: "This junk mail is being sent to you because Bank of America sold your personal information to us."
Strike two against MLB.com? After upgrading to MLB TV Premium today, the last step in their shopping pipeline was this page:
Plenty of sites try to insert an extra step at the end of the checkout process to upsell you, but MLB not only does this but lightens the offer rejection button so it looks like it's inactive or not clickable, even though it is. Not only is that a usability no-no, but it is just evil.
It reminds me of the old Real Networks hidden links for the free version of their player. You'd have to wade through page after page of offers for the paid version of their RealPlayer until you could locate the obscure link for the free player download. Years later, that terrible and short-sighted decision associates their brand with evil in my mind, even though they now offer a really great product in Rhapsody.