Thread

Grammarly will send unhinged messages to all your users if you try to cancel

394 points · 104 comments · ksec

pjmlp · 1790146698 · focus · HN ↗
For those in Europe, this kind of behaviour usually is taken care by consumer protection agencies, fill in a complaint /report them, in you jurisdiction.
1. alexaholic · 1790147887 · focus · HN ↗
  Consumer protection applies to individual consumers, not businesses. OP looks like a business.
  1. alibarber · 1790149684 · focus · HN ↗
    Yes - unfortunately this looks to be completely irrelevant to consumer protection.
    "A contractor of my employer asked me to contact another member of my organisation to persuade them to do something commercially advantageous for them" - at no point is anyone here a consumer.
    Business emails are subject to fairly different rules by the looks of it: <a href="https://tietosuoja.fi/en/faq-direct-marketing" rel="nofollow">https://tietosuoja.fi/en/faq-direct-marketing ("Can a person working in a company be sent direct electronic marketing") - it appears there's a fair bit of an exception that doesn't require consent.
    mjmas · 1790150830 · focus · HN ↗
    Here in Australia unless that particular user that received the emails gave consent to receive marketing emails (and the emails have identification + unsubscribe) it would be violating our Spam act.
    <a href="https://www.acma.gov.au/publications/2024-07/guide/consumer-consent-expectations-businesses-conducting-telemarketing-and-e-marketing" rel="nofollow">https://www.acma.gov.au/publications/2024-07/guide/consumer-...
    rrr_oh_man · 1790168379 · focus · HN ↗
    What happens if it gets ignored? I get blasted with email drips everywhere I sign up.
    mitxela · 1790163462 · focus · HN ↗
    The principle here, for anyone confused, is that a consumer has very weak negotiating power against a business and therefore needs basic rights, but when two businesses negotiate, it's a level playing field and if they wanted those rights they would've been easily able to get them.
    buzer · 1790231103 · focus · HN ↗
    According to <a href="https://superhuman.com/legal/dpa" rel="nofollow">https://superhuman.com/legal/dpa they claim that their role is processor. Processor is only allowed to use personal data they obtained from controller under controller's documented instructions. Unless those included authorization to send such an email to controller's users it's quite likely that they exceeded those. GDPR-wise (and likely that DPA-wise) that is a breach on it's own.
2. edwcross · 1790148169 · focus · HN ↗
  Unless you're in country A and ordered from country B (both in Europe), in which case the consumer protection agency from country A may just tell you "well they're not in our country so we can't do much, try contacting the European consumer agency, which after spending 30 minutes finding their form, and checking that you do qualify (which you won't, for some stupid reason like "did you try calling them nicely and sending a letter and waiting for 30 days?"), they will just say "ok cool we sent them an e-mail, we'll tell you how all of this will work out".
  Or maybe I'm just in a bad European country who pulls this kind of demotivating stints every time I have this kind of problem.
  1. pjmlp · 1790149234 · focus · HN ↗
    Sure, I don't say it is easy, it is also a matter of perseverance, in most cases.
    snottynose · 1790150581 · focus · HN ↗
    Sometimes you really hit a dead end. Some orgs just don't respond, or say they don't have the resources to process your complaint, or lie. The codified consumer protection laws are nice, in principle. Multinationals know they can get away with pretty much anything.
    AlisaYoki · 1790159492 · focus · HN ↗
    Fair. The agencies are one tool, but the payment intermediary is usually the one that actually moves - a chargeback often does more than an ECC complaint ever will
    rrr_oh_man · 1790168329 · focus · HN ↗
    I've tried it, a dozen times, in two European countries with, on paper, strong data protection laws. Every single time, after anemic back-and-forth, the national data protection agency basically told me "they say it's fine and you opted in, nothing we can do".
  2. Der_Einzige · 1790162419 · focus · HN ↗
    Damn it feels good to be an American eagle sounds
3. dataengineer56 · 1790149432 · focus · HN ↗
  Good luck actually getting them to do something. Also "Europe" is an entire continent with many different countries and laws, you might want to be more specific.
  1. pjmlp · 1790153363 · focus · HN ↗
    I added "in you jurisdiction" on purpose.
  2. port11 · 1790156045 · focus · HN ↗
    I reported a brand of baby formula that made our kid very sick, in light of the contamination of fish oil. Not even a week later they had gone to the shop and tested the batch.
    Cynicism about public institutions is overrated.
    drstewart · 1790157251 · focus · HN ↗
    Gee, I wonder what the difference between "dangerous killer baby formula" and "marketing tactic I don't like" is
    port11 · 1790164313 · focus · HN ↗
    The difference isn’t nil, but the point is that these institutions can be quite effective.
    I’ve reported issues to the DPA (Data Protection Agency) of Belgium and they handled it reasonably well, which I didn’t expect either.
    Marketing tactics are part of consumer issues and many countries seem to have good consumer protection laws. Of course Grammarly’s issue was towards/against a business, and that colours the problem. I think the damage to their reputation is enough punishment, but there might be other ways to tackle this.
    I merely fail to see the point of “oh well, the Humanity, what can we do”. Apathy is death.
4. bsoqk · 1790152191 · focus · HN ↗
  What are you going to report? There’s nothing illegal going on here.
  1. pjmlp · 1790153445 · focus · HN ↗
    Bad business practices, this sometimes also ends up in the agency reaching out to the related companies.
    Or having their names listed in industry reports, which their marketing departments usually don't like.
5. type0 · 1790159167 · focus · HN ↗
  I tried to report Linkedin for their practices and it was like spitting at the sky trying to hit God
6. fennecbutt · 1790159892 · focus · HN ↗
  Lmao no. First press games are a scammer company based in Germany. I reported them to the Verbraucherzentrale Bundesverband...nothing.
  I reported them to the UKICC and got a reply after like 7 months asking for more information (I'd given them plenty) and that they were very busy and it would probably take another year to look at it. I told them not to bother.
  1. pjmlp · 1790161826 · focus · HN ↗
    I have a different experience, Verbraucherzentrale has helped me putting Vodafone on their place regarding a phone contract that seemed almost impossible to cancel.
7. RobotToaster · 1790164039 · focus · HN ↗
  In the UK that would be trading standards, and unless it's a local shop selling un-taxed cigarettes they're useless.

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