What to do with a comment like this?

[RDude]

http://thebearranch.com gets more comments than any other of my blogs. Most aren't spam believe it or not. Butch Dixon is a well loved site after all. There have been regular commenters and one just recently posted this. I haven't approved it yet:

"Hi I like to see gay men can you send me porno to my mail?"

So there are many things I can do with a comment like this. I can post back and tell the cheap bastard to buy a membership to Butch Dixon if he likes the men so much. However....I can take other approaches as well. I recall you saying Rawtop that you regularly send out update emails to some of your surfers. How does this work for you and how do sponsors feel about this?

I know that most programs don't allow email promotion. But what if the surfer requests that? How does it work then?

Some feedback from affiliates and site owners on this would be very much appreciated. I am NOT a spammer in any way, shape or form, but if a surfer requests promo content to their mail box, is that considered a breach of TOS?

Thanks:cool:

[RDude]

By the way, I'm referring to pics only and just a few like you might see in a blog post. More of a Newsletter type of deal catching people up on recent posts to the blog. Nothing extravagant. Not video of course.

[dirkpeddler]

http://thebearranch.com gets more comments than any other of my blogs. Most aren't spam believe it or not. Butch Dixon is a well loved site after all. There have been regular commenters and one just recently posted this. I haven't approved it yet:

"Hi I like to see gay men can you send me porno to my mail?"

So there are many things I can do with a comment like this. I can post back and tell the cheap bastard to buy a membership to Butch Dixon if he likes the men so much. However....I can take other approaches as well. I recall you saying Rawtop that you regularly send out update emails to some of your surfers. How does this work for you and how do sponsors feel about this?

I know that most programs don't allow email promotion. But what if the surfer requests that? How does it work then?

Some feedback from affiliates and site owners on this would be very much appreciated. I am NOT a spammer in any way, shape or form, but if a surfer requests promo content to their mail box, is that considered a breach of TOS?

Thanks:cool:

I would be very, VERY careful. Eventhough he requests it, he might later claim you send him porn spam, most hosts(as sponsors) will require a double opt-in mailing list be used only. On the other hand, years ago I fell for one of those 'requests' to later find out another webmaster was trying to set me up and get my server terminated for this same reason, trying to eliminate competition. So be warned, be very careful. If you really want to give your surfers this service, add a mailing list to your blog and make sure they confirm being added to the list.
Another alarming issue is, if he is at your blog, found your contact information but is too lazy to right click on images on your blog to save them to his local drive, what's his deal?

[RDude]

I don't plan on doing this. I just wanted to get some feedback on it as I know some people have mentioned that they do it as affiliates. I appreciate the feedback of course though.

I too, wondered the same things.

[rawTOP]

I send a lot of e-mails... They're based off RSS feeds. Point FeedBurner at whatever feed you want to have as the source of your e-mails. FeedBurner has an e-mail option (sent daily at the time of your choosing) which requires the user to opt-in and then confirm their e-mail address. They also include all the links to unsubscribe at the bottom of every e-mail. All you have to do to make sure your CanSpam compliant is make sure the subject starts with "SEXUALLY EXPLICIT" (which, BTW, sponsors are required to do with update e-mails but very few actually do).

[dirkpeddler]

(which, BTW, sponsors are required to do with update e-mails but very few actually do).

Yes sponsors are not very compliant, but I must say most have an uption under your personal information page where you can enable or disable their emails. It's just not very obvious you can do this :)

[RDude]

I send a lot of e-mails... They're based off RSS feeds. Point FeedBurner at whatever feed you want to have as the source of your e-mails. FeedBurner has an e-mail option (sent daily at the time of your choosing) which requires the user to opt-in and then confirm their e-mail address. They also include all the links to unsubscribe at the bottom of every e-mail. All you have to do to make sure your CanSpam compliant is make sure the subject starts with "SEXUALLY EXPLICIT" (which, BTW, sponsors are required to do with update e-mails but very few actually do).

Ok thanks very much for the tips. In the event I do this - still haven't decided yet and am waiting for some sponsor feedback on the subject before I make my decision - I will certainly pay heed to proper protocol.