Don’t you just hate it that you need handfuls of user names, passwords, access codes, pin numbers, secret questions and so on? I don’t know about you but there’s only one other thing that I find to be a more annoying consequence of the technological era we live in, which is this email list ‘opt in’ and ‘opt out’ thing. It actually works really, really well when you opt into something you actually want or need, but it is oh so annoying when that time passes and you choose to opt-out, but the owner of the list decides that it in their interests for you to remain opted in.
Take Symantec Corp. Until a few years ago, I was a long-standing and loyal Norton ‘everything’ user. I had been faithful to the Norton brand since the days of DOS, when it was they who always seemed to have the magic bullet for that nightmare technical support challenge that could help you gain or lose a client, or your job for that matter. It was something of a no-brainer to entrust them with virus protection when they moved into that area. Then Symantec came along and wrapped their brand around everything, which just went rather pear-shaped from there. It got to the point a few years back, when I ended up throwing away 3 fully paid up licenses when their technical support people insisted I was using a pirated version of their product, when in fact I had purchased a new machine that had an oem version of their product pre-installed and when I upgraded that to the higher version, which I owned a license for, it sent their super-sophisticated license tracking system into a frenzy. Rather like that early airbus aircraft that landed itself a few kilometres short of the runway, Symantec customer service was programmed to stand by what ever that system told them – no matter what.
The final straw came after countless uninstalls and re-installs, when the Symantec product would constantly de-activate itself and the inevitable happened... my system got compromised by a virus – all while I was in possession of not one but three licenses… Of course I complained, but you can just imagine the response I got when I said that I wanted my money back. In protest I cancelled my account and when their system asked me why I enjoyed every moment making that very clear. I also specifically opted out of everything Symantec had to offer, shut down my account and moved to another anti-virus / firewall supplier.
Dear Symantec, that was about 3 years ago. Today, I still get spam from you and it doesn’t matter what I do, you still send me your junk promotions, and as far as I am concerned that is precisely what you are doing - promoting junk. Your brand is an empty shell of an idea; an aura of something that not only consistently fails to deliver as advertised, but fails miserably on moral grounds. I am not the only one. Many, many people that have been around for any reasonable length of time in the IT industry readily acknowledge that your product is for schmucks. I think its time someone let you in on that little secret and while we're at it, let all the schmucks like me know too! Just another big company milking end-users with about as much accountability, finesse and sensitivity as the rock you find next to a hard place. Why keep trying to sell me something I am never going to buy? Did anybody actually notice anything I said back then? Gimme a break. What is this the old telco ‘please come back we love you’ routine? Well, it isn’t working and never will work dam it! It wasn’t enough to rip me off. You owe me money damit - not SPAM!
