Bark SPAM

What is Bark?

“Bark is a lead generation service. ”

By that, I think they mean business based on unsolicited email.

“Customers tell us what they’re looking for and we put them in touch with local service providers to help get the job done.”

So they send a ton of emails for the same lead to a harvested email list.

“We usually charge a small fee for introductions and operate on a pay as you go basis but this one is completely free as we’ve approached you. It is essentially our way of introduction and your way of trying us out. We’re just hoping you give it a go and decide you would like to use us again in the future (of course that is completely up to you). There are no sign up fees, subscriptions or commissions”

Sadly they keep signing me up. Even though I’ve contacted them previously.

Today I sent them a GDPR access request in light of their email. They immediately sent me an email saying they had removed me from their database.

I replied and said I’d made an access request and I still expected a response in 30 days.

Let’s hope this makes them think twice about spamming people.

Although by the sounds of it spamming people is their business model.

Ikea Wins Valentine’s Day With Offer of Free Crib—Nine Months From Now | Adweek

Ikea Australia has done the maths (or has it?) and come up with an amusing Valentine’s Day offer—a free crib for babies born nine months from today. You’ll have to clip out the voucher and keep it in a safe place for those nine months, and also provide proof of birth (whatever that means). The coupon also notes, “Delivery not included.” That, of course, is the mom’s job.

Happy VD

via Ikea Wins Valentine’s Day With Offer of Free Crib—Nine Months From Now | Adweek.

Security audit finds dev OUTSOURCED his JOB to China to goof off at work • The Register

This is genius! I wonder how many people at my office are doing the same as a lot of their days seem to consist of the same ‘work days’.

After getting permission to study Bob’s computer habits, Verizon investigators found that he had hired a software consultancy in Shenyang to do his programming work for him, and had FedExed them his two-factor authentication token so they could log into his account. He was paying them a fifth of his six-figure salary to do the work and spent the rest of his time on other activities.

The analysis of his workstation found hundreds of PDF invoices from the Chinese contractors and determined that Bob’s typical work day consisted of:

9:00 a.m. – Arrive and surf Reddit for a couple of hours. Watch cat videos

11:30 a.m. – Take lunch

1:00 p.m. – Ebay time

2:00-ish p.m – Facebook updates, LinkedIn

4:30 p.m. – End-of-day update e-mail to management

5:00 p.m. – Go home

via Security audit finds dev OUTSOURCED his JOB to China to goof off at work • The Register.

Why would anyone apply for a job on Facebook?

The Facebook Job Board Is Here: Recruiting Will Never Look The Same – Forbes

Facebook announced its long-awaited job board this morning, ushering in a new era of online recruiting and, eventually, what’s likely to be an important new source of revenue for the company. After a yearlong “Social Jobs Partnership” with the U.S. Department of Labor and other government agencies, the company released the Social Jobs Partnership application today, an interactive job board that aggregates 1.7 million openings from recruiting companies already working on the platform, including Work4 Labs, BranchOut, Jobvite, DirectEmployers and Monster.com.

I don’t think it’s much of an issue to be fair – jobvite is scary asking for facebook details (plus it never worked very well) and really most people are friends on facebook with work colleagues. You’d want ot be very careful that apps and boards didn’t publicise your activity and we all know how Facebook treat privacy controls…

via The Facebook Job Board Is Here: Recruiting Will Never Look The Same – Forbes.

Zynga closes UK office, closes games and axes 5% of staff | The Wall Blog

We have already seen stocks in social networking firms quickly decline this year and last night more of the bubble burst as social gaming firm Zynga announced, timed to coincide with the launch of the iPad Mini, that it was cutting 5% of its 3,200 workforce.

The cuts will include the closures of its operations in the UK and Japan although no word on how many are affected by these cuts.

Along with the job cuts Zynga plans to dispose of 13 older games and reduce its investment in the game The Ville.

via Zynga closes UK office, closes games and axes 5% of staff | The Wall Blog.

Cadbury Screme Eggs Are Amusingly Rotten in Halloween Spots | Adweek

Hardly surprising that Cadbury recently owned by US mega company Kraft and now owned by another US corporation Mondel?z is now creating Halloween products.
Cadbury has finally started recognizing Halloween with its Cadbury Screme Egg, and these three Canadian TV spots for it—by ad agency The Hive in Toronto—are as spooky as ads for candy eggs will allow. They do a good job of showing off the Screme Egg’s special Halloween wrapper and green-and-white yolk (which looks a bit more like snot than they probably intended).

 

via Cadbury Screme Eggs Are Amusingly Rotten in Halloween Spots | Adweek.

Twitter Weekly Round Up for 2009-12-13

  • I'm at Gare du Nord (73 Rue de Dunkerque, Paris). http://bit.ly/2gKzMp #
  • Go to http://www.graze.com and use the code 4THHHD5T to get a free box of healthy snacks delivered to your desk or front door #
  • So we have a 'tree' in the garden 🙂 http://yfrog.com/6o78mj #
  • Is excited that Glee is previewing in the UK on Tuesday. Everyone can see how brilliant it is. #
  • @DaraghLally cheers – how about you? Tree up yet? in reply to DaraghLally #
  • @dbushe yeah my main reason for firefox is AdBlockPlus 😉 in reply to dbushe #
  • very disappointed about the job i/v last week 🙁 #
  • @krisatomic I HATE @O2 as well. I've had NO coverage today. In South West London customer service could care less in reply to krisatomic #
  • O2 what are you doing? No 3G service at all – can't make or receive calls unless 3G is off but don't know that unless you try to make a call #
  • It's Christmas in the Lambo Croll household finally http://yfrog.com/1yrw2vj #
  • X Factor is actually worth watching this week. Robbie, George Michael and Michael Bubble. Olly olly olly! #

The best job in the world?

Want to be an island caretaker at the Great Barrier Reef? Yes so do I and probably hundreds of thousands of others – especially since the salary is ridiculously high too. £73,500 and a six month contract – smells like a tourism campaign to me but hey I’m heading on over to islandreefjob.com with everyone else – will let you know how I get on 😉