I think Rick Rawson has mislead all of you, resulting in lots of OT discussion. The question is, as the thread so clearly proclaims, "Why is Paizo Spammer Friendly?" It is not introducing a discussion of whether Paizo is spammer friendly. This is a fact, in hand by the mere posting of it. The OP (perhaps we have an Ur-Poster who is not Rick Rawson? Perhaps Rick Rawson is some kind of postmodern trickster leading you down the primrose path to Tartarus?) has observed a fact, and is inquiring into the reasons behind the fact, not evidence of the fact. It is likely that the OP had the genius of observation, or recognition of truth, but did not have the critical genius that allows one to uncover goals, motives, intentions, and such like. Having recognized the reality, s/he is asking for help in tracing it to its roots. These are the items on the agenda for discussion. Does Paizo benefit from it pro-spammer policy? How? Who is/are responsible for this policy? Does the rot go all the way to the top? What can we learn about the economics and politics that led to this state-of-affairs? Are there important moral and affective dimensions to this explanation? Until this inquiry bears assured results, this thread should not die. Bend your mental powers to this task, fellow Paizonians! Eschew distractions!
Your lack of sophistication with anti-piracy technology does not make Paizo "spammer-friendly".
Not that I particularly care one way or the other. Such a spectacular bout of whining and misrepresentations regarding having your email address on a piece of paper suggests the community is better off without your participation. Check back in when you're no longer a noob on the internet and understand the subtle differences between your email address and your bank account information.
Wow. I thought I had had a bad episode and hated the whole world. I was wrong. My life must be a pony ranch compared to yours. The way you lash out here suggests that your dog ate your family and choked on a bone, dying, falling onto a life wire which shorted and burned down your house, with all your possessions, and the insurance policy paperwork, and now they won't pay. Or something. My condolences, man.
Though I understand where the OP is coming from - If you print out the Beta and then lose a page, your email-address is out there - I do think it's pretty far fetched to say that this will inevitably lead to your email-address being sold to every single spammer in the multiverse. Or even to any spammer at all. This has paranoia written all over it, I agree. Maybe even trolling. No need for namecalling, though. There's always the chance that he's really concerned. And if he's really a troll, he has just gotten his fix from you, and can parade this post around for everyone to see how evil we posters on the Paizo boards are.
Director of Sales
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Let me start by saying that the security of our customer's personal information is of the utmost importance to us. It is fundamental to the design of the website and within the underlying software architecture of the store to the point that it's sometimes an impediment to adding features (see: wishlists, etc.). Furthermore, we are constantly reviewing our website and store for possible security holes or weaknesses and addressing them (see:resigning in).
We are, in fact, quite paranoid with our customer's information.
This being said, I would like to address your points on an individual basis.
Why is my e-mail address embedded in the 'free' down load of the Pathfinder rules?
If I lose *one* page I risk being put on every spam list on the planet.
Why put my private information in a public 'free' file?
This is *NOT* player friendly at all.
As previous posters have mentioned the PDF, while free, is intended for personal use only and not intended for widespread distribution through outlets that are not Paizo.com. We wish for everyone to have their own copy of the PDF, and for them to come to Paizo.com to obtain it. Therefore the Beta Rules PDF is watermarked, just like nearly every other PDF available here.
ITS A water mark , ya can take it out easy enuff with a a few free programs.
Please do not do this, or advocate doing this.
How is embedding personal information into the file player-friendly?It's not a matter of how easy it is to remove; the question iswhy does paizo; claiming happy players are their priority; embed my personal data into a free file that they *SHOULD* want me to share.
Because each player should have their own copy. We want more players to come and see the Beta, Paizo.com, and our awesome community. We are here for everyone, and everyone is welcome. Our hope is that you, as a DM who is interested in the Pathfinder Beta, will direct your players to Paizo.com to download a copy of the rules.
The e-mail is visible when I print the file. I don't have to share the file in a questionable way. Once I print the file I have to protect the printout the same way I do my bank statements - it now has personal information.
We do not expect that someone would enter an email address into our database that is a super-sensitive piece of identifiable information. in this day and age, the ease of creating an email account means that if you have an email account that you consider as sensitive as a bank statement (I won't touch the logic of this), then you can create a dummy email account to use for public websites.
Many people set up an email account that looks like this "Paizo@whateverdomainname.com". Especially people with their own domain, which I see that you have. Furthermore, I see that this is exactly what you have done.
When the PDF is used as intended, I do not see the problem with this.
What ever Paizo's intention; the horrible web design that sends you in circles, the 'how much spam can we send you' when you create the requried account to download the file, 'buying' the 'free' file before you can download, and now embedding my e-mail in the file has convinced me that paizo is no more gamer friendly than WoTc.
I cannot speak for the web design, as I am not the (or even a) designer (however, I would like to direct you to my opening comments).
We consider it polite to ask a new person if they would like to receive offers via email. This is something we have always done, and many people opt in. In fact, a vast majority of new customers do. You are in the minority. However, since we asked you, we know that you DON'T want these offers, so you will not receive them.
Once again, I do not see a problem with this.
Shame really, I had hopes. Oh, well. I wish you all the best of luck, I just can't see paizo as gamer centric when my experience so far has been so needlessly bad.
I appreciate your well wishes, and I am sorry that you had a poor experience. I do wish you would come back, read some of the rest of the forums, and get a better feel for what it is that we are doing around here. I think that you will see that, once you get past a few misapprehensions, we have a special place for gamers here on Paizo.com and our labor of love, the Pathfinder RPG, is something that is worthy of your high hopes.
Now…
I think we've all spilled quite enough (digital) ink on this topic, so I'm going to go ahead and lock this thread. If anyone has anything more to add on this topic, please feel free to start a new thread in the Website Feedback forum.
Cosmo,
Customer Service Manager.