This is unbelievable. If I was paranoid, and a conspiracy theorist, I might think there was something going on here.

For the third time in two weeks, I’ve had stock replies from online companies or organisations that don’t read email and send stock replies.

This time, it’s the Digital Spy forums.

I quite fancied joining this forum, but they have a policy of not allowing ‘anonymous’ email addresses such as Yahoo and Gmail. They’ve decided in their “wisdom” that anyone coming from those domains must be bad, out to scam and spam everyone.

Apparently, I’m no better, because when I went to register with an email address under my own domain name (one that has been registered for 4 years, with a real name and genuine contact information (that I get spammed with)) I’m told that I’m a criminal and am not welcome my address is invalid.

Apparently I have to sign up using an email address from my ISP.

My ISP is BT. I don’t have my email account active with them, for the very reason that ISPs tend to be temporary. Ironically, BT also use Yahoo for their email.

So I wrote to see if I could join the forum by manually applying:

I cannot register for the forum because it tells me that my email address has been rejected: “Please note that Digital Spy does not accept registrations from anonymous webmail providers such as Hotmail and Yahoo.”

Given that my domain has been registered for 4 years and has a valid postal address attached to it, this is quite insulting. Are you telling me that I have to use a fairly temporal email address from my ISP (which is BT at present, who ironically team up with Yahoo, one of your “banned” addresses) to use your forum? That’s ridiculous.

I was looking forward to commenting on some of the discussion threads, particularly those that reference the articles I write at HDTVUK.tv, a site that receives some 5,000 visitors per day. Perhaps you don’t want my presence here?

Yes I know it’s snotty but after filling out forms and completely annoying captchas, I was a little annoyed to be rejected as a potential spammer. And besides, I enjoy the feedback.

Today I got this reply:

Hi,

Unfortunately we do not accept registrations from anonymous email providers such as Hotmail, Yahoo or Gmail.  This is due to previous abuse issues from users with email addresses on these services.

We apologise for the inconvenience, but the no-anonymous addresses rule is designed to protect our community.

Thanks for not reading my email, and (ironically) not even having the courtesy to sign your anonymous email with the name of a real person. I’d already told you what your FAQ contained. Don’t just quote it back at me!

Apparently, I’m just anonymous, and I’m going to spam everyone. Oh well, their loss I suppose.

I think inKline Global, who make (amongst other things) the PC Booster software for the PC, has been taking “customer support” lessons from the Domain Registry of America.

I was intrigued and perplexed as to why inKline Global were taking out targeted banner advertisements for their PC Booster software, and yet not filtering out Mac users. I’ve seen a number of banners stating that “my Mac has poor performance”, and when I was intrigued enough to click on one, I was offered a PC-only piece of software, even though the sales page on the web site still referred to my Mac!

I emailed them, from interest only, just to see if they were aware that they were wasting money on poorly targeted ads:

Why do you advertise to Mac owners?

Your FAQ says categorically:

“Does PC Booster run on Macintosh?

PC Booster does not run on Macintosh.”

So why do you run loads of stupid banner ads saying “Your Mac may need a tune up”?

It’s wasted advertising and it’s annoying! If you only make PC software, you should abandon contextual advertising to anyone NOT on a PC!

Now I don’t care what this company does with their money - but I enjoy sending pesky letters from time to time, just for the fun of it.

Here’s the response I received this morning, via email, from the lovely Trisha:

Dear Andy,

Currently PC Booster is not compatible with Macintosh. Once we have a compatible Mac- product, we will notify you through our newsletter.

Have a nice day.

Oh I will have a nice day, safe in the knowledge that I haven’t wasted money with a company that doesn’t bother to read their support emails properly. Had she done this, she would have seen me reference the very answer stating that they don’t make the software for Macs!

Oh, and you had better not notify me through your newsletter, as I’ve never signed up for it. I do hope you haven’t subscribed me to it.

Come on, companies, sort it out.

I had a BBC Breakfast news TV window open on my desktop this morning, glanced across, and saw this caption appear on the screen:

I scrambled for the volume control and backtracked to hear the ‘news’ that Madeleine’s parents say that they believe she is safe, and will stay in Portugal until she is found.

I’m sorry, but important as that may be, that caption is misleading. The way it’s presented makes it look as if either the BBC, or some official authority, have evidence that leads them to believe that Madeleine McCann is safe.

That’s not the case.

Of course, we have hope that this little girl will be found safe and well, but I’m struggling to see how we’ve been told anything particularly new today. This is irritating reporting from the BBC.

This morning, we had to say goodbye to Tai Pai, our Siamese cat. She had been gradually getting more ill over the past few weeks, and was obviously slipping away this morning.It’s almost exactly a year since Mitzi died.

Forget the theology - I’m sure they’re irritating each other somewhere in that love-hate relationship they had.

We miss you both.

A Sunderland greengrocer, Steven Thoburn, has taken a conviction for selling a pound of bananas to the grave.

It’s all part of the ridiculous European Union rules that stipulate that the UK is no longer allowed to sell produce only in imperial measures.

However:

The Metric Martyrs campaign group and the Conservatives say a 2009 deadline for metric measures to replace imperial measures has been shelved.

Tory industry spokesman, Giles Chichester, said he had EU confirmation that the marking of goods in metric and imperial could “continue indefinitely”.

A spokesman for the Metric Martyrs group called it a “monumental victory”.

Tory MEP Mr Chichester said he had received the confirmation from the European Commission’s Industry Commissioner Gunther Verheugen.

Mr Chichester said following lobbying by the Tories, the commissioner agreed it was good for British and European industry to keep imperial measurements as it would make it easier for firms to sell to the US.

Makes sense to me. I’ve nothing against either system of measurement, but there are still practical (and not just sentimental) reasons why the imperial system should be allowed to continue.

Here’s some irony, and I’m not entirely sure how it’s crept into the search results, but if you search for that hex number (you know, the 09-f9-11-02-***-63-56-88-c0 one that’s caused all the Digg controversy, the MPAA’s own site comes up in fifth or sixth position (depending on whether you put the number in straight, or separated with hyphens)

How bizarre is that?

Try it (though note that your results may vary depending on your location)

Here’s what you get if you search with the hyphens: http://tinyurl.com/2l4683

And here’s what you get searching without any characters between each hex number: http://tinyurl.com/2tedyy

This leads to a page that looks similar to:

Maybe they should serve a DMCA notice to themselves.

On that note, here’s an interesting post from Philipp Lenssen who was served a DMCA notice from blogger.com.

The controversy, and the number, rumbles on.

PS I can’t be bothered putting marks over all occurrences of the number in those screenshots - it’s not as if it’s a secret is it ?

Nooooooo!

Smug old Cameron reckons the Tory party will win the next General Election, thanks to large wins so far in the local election results yesterday. Mind you, there are still plenty of results to come in.

Save us all, please. WHY VOTE TORY? WHY WHY WHY?

I’ve had physical junk mail from the UK subsidiary of the Domain Registry of America in the past, and binned it immediately.

Quite apart from the fact that I don’t deal with unsolicited mail from companies that can’t even be bothered to find out my real name, and that I won’t pay extortionate fees to a company that preys on more novice Internet users, I’ve read plenty about the underhand tactics of the DRA.

For those who don’t know, the DRA write to domain name owners, offering them a renewal on their domain name. Their mail does appear to make it a little clearer now that if you sign up with them, you switch control of the domain to them. In the past they’ve made their letters look like invoices that had to be paid…

Anyway, this morning I received more junk mail about two domain names that expire in September this year. I’d never move from my current registrar, particularly as DRA’s renewal prices are extortionate, in my view.

So I decided to complain. Here’s my email to them, making it quite clear that they are potentially breaking UK law, and that I want my details removed. It’s not eloquent, but it is clear enough:

Hello,

Please can you tell me why your UK operation continues to spam me with “offers” about renewing domain names that I own?

I have asked for details to be removed, and therefore your UK subsidiary is breaking UK mailing preference laws.

I would be grateful of a swift response to this request, and an assurance that your operation in London (SW7 4UB) will no longer send unsolicited mail.

All my domain name renewals are handled through a reputable UK-based registry. I will NEVER use your services, so please stop wasting paper and destroying the environment by sending worthless pieces of paper.

Please confirm your intentions by return email. Failure to do so, and continued unsolicited mail from yourselves, will result in legal action being taken against you.

Thank you

Andy Merrett

However, they seemed to use their reply as a further opportunity for a sales pitch:

Hello,

Thank you for your email.

The mail that you received is an offer from our company. It outlines our prices and services and asks if you wish to renew the domain name with us.

The domain registry industry was deregulated which allows customers to renew their domain with any company they wish. Look over our prices and decide for yourself.

Should you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact us using the information below.

Gilbert
Technical Support Department

So, Gilbert, what you’ve done is:

1. Tell me what your spam letter has already told me (I KNOW what the letter is about, I just don’t want it)
2. Not responded to my request to remove my details from the database, nor explained or answered my questions.
3. Failed to read my second to last paragraph, and so countering “I will NEVER use your services” with “Look over our prices and decide for yourself.”
4. Proved yourselves to be an incompetent, cowboy operation that doesn’t listen to the complaints of people you’ve sent junk mail to.

If there was even a smidgen of a chance that I’d have used your services, then I certainly won’t now.

Absolutely pathetic, Gilbert.

Carol Vorderman asked this question on a recent Big Brain Game:

“Using simple maths, how can you reach a total of 100 using only six nines?”

I took this to mean that you had to use six instances of the digit ‘9′ and simple mathematics. However, their answer took it that you could string the digits together to make bigger numbers without using maths at all.

Their answer was:

99 / 99 + 99 = 100

Yes, it works, but I have the CORRECT answer:

( 9 * 9 ) + ( 9 + 9 ) + ( 9 / 9 ) = 100

Mine is much more mathematically sound.