Yes, sourceforge.net has resorted to spamming its users. I have received a number of emails from this “Sourceforge.net Marketplace”. In the past, I just let the spam catcher correctly junk them, but today I got annoyed with it. I looked at the bottom of the email, and I see
This email was sent to: xxxx@users.sourceforge.net if you would prefer not to receive information about SourceForge.net Marketplace, please update your communication preferences by visiting the Profile Center.
(my username crossed out because I get enough spam there already)
So, I visit sourceforge, log in, and go to my profile. Nothing is listed for the marketplace mailings. I got visit the marketplace, and there is no profile there. So, what next? I spend several minutes trying to find the old ticket system for the sourceforge site. It used to be rather prominent, but now it more hidden. I file ticket 1884414. It seems that they went through great trouble to hide the fact that “Profile Center” is actually a link. I mean they used inline css to hide all attributes that give you any hint that it is a link; I guess in the hopes that you will not actually click on it. The link tag looks like this
<a style=“font-family:arial;font-size:11px;color:#999999;text-decoration:none;” …
So, I used to use sourceforge back in the day for open source projects. I moved my projects off of them because their servers were too unreliable and they took so long to adopt svn. Now, I host my own projects, one of which is bigger than any I worked on under sourceforge, and the stability is much greater. I guess sourceforge has noticed their pending obsolescence, so they started using their large user base to spam people. Perhaps it is time for me to delete my account there as I have no use for it anymore.
Legacy Comments:
Divide and Conquer » Blog Archive » SourceForge.net Marketplace spam - Feb 2, 2008
[…] I got another of the mails. This time I think I managed to unsubscribe. Unsurprisingly, I’m not the only one annoyed by this venture from […]
Al Iverson - Feb 11, 2008
Graham, we here at ExactTarget host that email service for SourceForge. We don’t knowingly allow spam and it is not cool to us that you’re ending up on this email list that you don’t want to be on. I’m investigating and we’ll get it resolved.
Graham Booker - Feb 11, 2008
Considering the fact that I hadn’t even visited sourceforge’s website since before the marketplace existed, it is quite clear that I didn’t opt in to this thing.