Shaun Walker wrote:
The Update Service has been in the DNN platform since 2006. It's purpose is to provide a service to our users to let them know when a new version of the software is available. This is especially important when a security issue is discovered, as there is often a short window of opportunity to upgrade your site to ensure it is adquately protected from malicious intent. We have always been careful to restrict the information passed to those items which are important to the Update Service so that it can provide the appropriate upgrade recommendations to your site. When we released 7.2 in December we introduced a new ability for a user to opt in to our Newsletter during the installation or upgrade process. Folks who opt-in will receive the monthly Community Newsletter which contains a variety of helpful information about products and community support. The mechanism used by the software to capture the email address entered is the Update Service, as it was the best method to ensure the user was added to the newsletter mailing list ( ie. it did not require us to add additional callbacks to the platform ). Users can decide to disable the Update Service at any time either before or after installation - there is a web.config setting that can be used, or it can be done through Host Settings.
I can tell you now that these emails are coming through on a regular basis to our private email and privacy obscured email addresses. I never signed up for newsletters, they were never part of the build. Here is how I believe it works..
1 - your update tool identifies the domain address
2 - your staff go and do a whois on the domain
3 - you send unsolicited emails promoting evoq to the email address of the domain name on the whois results
4 - by NOT getting an 'unsubscribe' option, you have assumed permission to keep marketing
5 - you then send out weekly/fortnightly emails about evoq
I have based this on the way this dnnsoftware spam has come about because, after really looking into this, there no other way you could have these two email addresses. These emails were never ever opt in, further to that, on clicking the email link regarding the newsletter, there was only one to ask me if I wanted to subscribe, so not even a checked box, but still the email comes in. I used to compare Wordpress as being the Walmart of software.. you'll use it if you have to but really, for a quality product you use something like DNN, however, this thread is really showing that your push to rid the pesky community from the polished evoq environment is interesting, given that Cathal still asks people to log bugs.
Just puttin' it out there.. I so much would LOVE to be proven wrong on this.