On March 4 we wrote about FanBox being the new Plaxo in that the site regularly spammed users. Further the opt-out process for emails was unduly complicated to the point of being unusable.
I was approached by FanBox’s PR firm last week who told me they wanted to line up a meeting with the CEO so they could put their story forward. I naturally presumed that I would be spun but to be fair I’d listen to what they had to say.
So this morning I get on a conference call with them, complete with WebEx presentation. It lasted 5 minutes. They immediately said that they were in the wrong and that having read the comments from TechCrunch readers they are changing their email process. Receive an email from FanBox, click on the opt out option, and you get a screen similar to the one pictured. Selecting Never and Save means no more emails from FanBox. They did explain that as they are building a social platform that users can contact other users, however you can opt out of that as well. Third party applications; not a problem either, simple opt-out process. They even thanked TechCrunch’s commenters for giving them the feedback prior to their official launch so that they could act on it.
A big thumbs up for FanBox for listening.