Ask HN: Should there be a shame list for bad YC companies? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Should there be a shame list for bad YC companies?

36 pointsstevekemp11 comments

I've been spammed by YC-invested companies in the past. Usually I politely ask to be removed, or blacklist the appropriate domain.

For the past few months I've been receiving sporadic junk-mails, entirely unsolicated, from a YC company that even boasts about that affiliation in their signature:

    XXX (Y Combinator W16)

The company has neither responded to my requests to stop, nor replied to the tweet I sent them.

Not all YC companies are spammers, but those that are should be held accountable. Is there a shame list? Or am I being petulant by wanting one?

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Just hit "report spam" in Gmail and before long their email domain gets burned. That hurts much more than some shaming list.

The crafty companies use dedicated and disposable domains (e.g. facebookmail.com) for their more "aggressive" forms of email marketing. Alas, most spammers are not crafty.

I find the "facebookmail.com" stuff to be super annoying — not just because it facilitates them sending more spam, but also because it becomes more difficult to know for sure if an email is legitimate.

Should I assume that [company] owns not just "company.com", but also "companyemail.com", "companyhelp.com", etc? Or are these domains registered (perhaps with the unicode trick) by savvy phishers?

I don't use Gmail, although I can certainly blacklist their domain globally for myself and friends/colleagues.

You're probably being petulant.

Email spam is a problem, but "shame lists" are likely to be a bigger problem.

I would suggest solving your problem by creating an email filter for the company's domain name.

There have been well over 1000 YC companies now. They aren't a unique enough demographic to get any special treatment, positive or negative. Just treat them like anyone else. Report them as spam and move along.

Personally I'd just filter their emails and leave it at that (and report spam if using gmail). If that doesn't satisfy, leave a bad review somewhere?

I don't think a coordinated shame list, just for YC companies would do much.

The more interesting question is how did they get your email address?

Agreed.

They probably bought it on a list. It's certainly not something I've shared with them directly, or indirectly.

You could just filter the incoming emails to be deleted on arrival.

It's sort of schizophrenic to want to make a shame list, and then redact out the company name. Unless it was edited by a moderator? (I sure hope not.)

FWIW it was GitPrime, though I didn't think that was the sole point if this original post.

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