Chapell & Associates

Friday, September 14, 2007

Chapell TV


This morning I was interviewed by Kate Sullivan from WCBS 2 News This Morning regarding privacy and laptop security. Look for it to air next week.

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posted by Alan on Friday, September 14, 2007 | |

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Irony and the "new" DMA

I was up fairly late last night working on a project for a new client. This happens from time to time, and when it does, I like to sleep in a bit the next morning.


At 8:01 AM, I was awakened by a call. A pre-recorded call from John Greco, CEO of the Direct Marketing Association. John's message was that there was some important information on - get this - ethical and permission based marketing at the DMA 07' Conference in October.


And just to add to the irony, the DMA website doesn't empower it's members to adjust their communications preferences.... which, if you think about it, is kind of permission marketing 101. Yes, they provide me with the option of not getting email messages, but nothing regarding unsolicited phone calls.

Now honestly folks, would you take advice on permission based marketing from someone that demonstrates so little respect as to call you at 8am?

I sent an email to John and to the DMA's customer service #. I'll let you know if/when I hear back.... ugg.

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posted by Alan on Wednesday, September 12, 2007 | |

Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Protecting your kids...

Via MobileCrunch, AT&T recently announced a new set of parental controls, which allow parents to set limits on the way their kids use mobile devices.


Don't kid yourself - this is in direct response to ongoing investigations of the ring tone space by state and local regulators, and paralells what some of the adware companies were doing a few years ago.

The adware companies were, generally speaking, enticing kids to download their software which was bundled with screen savers or file sharing programs such as Kazaa. Parents would come home to computers which (at times) were rendered unusable due to aggressive pop-up ads.

Companies in the ring tone value chain were enticing kids to sign up for ring tone subscriptions at $9.99 per month. Here, parents are often left footing the bill for something that they had no idea that their 16 year old had purchased.

As a parent, if I'm going to allow myteenaged kid to use what amounts to a credit card, I'm going to want to be able to exercize some control over how they use it.

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posted by Alan on Tuesday, September 04, 2007 | |

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