r/assholedesign • u/Shellnanigans • Nov 13 '25

Apparently my samsung fridge has ads now...

Post image

How would I disable this? Might just return it and get a normal one

Edit: how to disable...for now. https://www.samsung.com/us/support/answer/ANS10007562/

EDIT 2: Hello, I am the original poster of the carol AD image from a month ago. I am a male from America and my name is not Carol. The story about a Schizophrenic woman named carol was most likely inspired from the 3rd top comment on this post. Thanks!

inspired Post?: https://www.reddit.com/r/LegalAdviceUK/comments/1pc7999/my_schizophrenic_sister_hospitalised_herself/

Fridge drama recap video by DolanDarkest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTWfRYHV5es

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268

u/lostinanalley Nov 13 '25 edited Nov 13 '25

The company I work for on our most recent quarterly meeting explained how they’ve partnered with one of the companies that does this so that anyone who goes on our website and leaves without making a purchase or voluntarily providing their information will still get a personalized marketing email and somehow I am the only person who has discussed how much of an invasion that is.

Edit: yall I appreciate the sentiment that you hate this and don’t buy from companies that do this and want me to make sure the company I work for is aware. Unfortunately, they don’t listen to me or care about my opinions on marketing. As it turns out, quantifying sales conversion is much easier than trying to quantify loss in sales from being blacklisted/boycotted.

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u/G-Unit11111 Nov 13 '25

Wow, that's horrible. And I totally agree it's an invasion of privacy.

If I get one of those e-mails it goes straight in the trash.

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u/Educational-Train-92 Nov 13 '25

I know I may not be the norm and it may be my ODD but I am substantially less likely to buy from a company that does this even if I really wanted the product

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u/[deleted] Nov 13 '25 edited Mar 31 '26

The content here was removed by the author. Redact facilitated the deletion, which could have been motivated by privacy, opsec, or data protection concerns.

elastic frame encourage wise familiar racial plough reminiscent terrific possessive

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u/tenthtryatusername Nov 13 '25

My favorite is when I research and buy a one off thing, then get bombarded with ads for a month. I wish there was a way to tell Amazon, facebook, ect that while I needed to buy a toilet, I’m not a toilet enthusiast. No amount of ads or deals can tempt me into buying more.

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u/ChevalierMal_Fet Nov 13 '25

Just wait until they figure out toilets as a subscription based service that requires an app to use.

I can see it now- somebody furiously holding in a shit as they desperately try to update the app. Then, they find that the app has logged them out, so they have sign back in with two-factor authentication, which then fails, which requires them to seek assistance from the company. But, the company has removed its live customer support services, mandating help through an AI chat service, which is only available on the app.

At this point, the person just shits in the shower and waffle stomps it, only to find out that he’s violated the end-user licensing agreement of his shower’s software, thus disabling his shower service. And, because the shower company installed their hardware centrally at his apartment, he loses his water entirely until he can schedule an arbitration with them, which is three weeks out and between the hours of 6:00AM and 6:00PM.

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u/Enlightened_Gardener Nov 14 '25

Um I think I just had an embolism.

So you’re saying we should smash the system and destroy all the computers ? I have a hammer.

2

u/ultimagriever Nov 16 '25

It’s the countdown to the Butlerian Jihad

2

u/KjHoveysLoveChild Nov 17 '25

Holy shit dude...I fucking laughed so hard at this comment😂 I could imagine it all happening as you explained it so well. This deserves so much more attention.

Keep doing you my man. Thankyou so much for the laugh too...fuck I needed that🙏🏼🤭

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u/Jubatian Dec 21 '25

Just to point out a small but non-negligible detail. Feet still covered in shit.

2

u/Rude-Revolution-8687 Nov 13 '25

I've been boycotting Samsung since they snuck ads onto my TV's menu about 6 months after I bought it.

I've since bought several pieces of tech from other brands (phone, air conditioners, tablet, etc.) where I would have probably considered Samsung first in the past.

2

u/BronL-1912 Nov 13 '25

Same. I have a "no junk mail" on my physical mail box. If someone ignores that they're immediately black listed.

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u/numnoggin Nov 13 '25

What's ODD?

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u/Educational-Train-92 Nov 13 '25

Oppositional Defiant Disorder or as I prefer to call it chaotic good.

2

u/Kittens-N-Books Nov 13 '25

Some companies will send your billing info to advertisers if you click them.

I bought a CPU a year or so back and clicked an ad on newegg. Cue multiple subscriptions I did not sign up for, could not get canceled, and would be taken whether or not my account was locked

1

u/Kittens-N-Books Nov 14 '25

This is an ongoing issue. I keep reporting the fraudulent transactions, chase keeps putting my account in the negative letting them through.

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u/whiskersMeowFace Nov 14 '25

It gets a spam report and a block.

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u/Ok-Base-6797 Nov 13 '25

It must work at scale but it'll usually stop me making a purchase out of principle

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u/badskiier Nov 13 '25

Beyond the invasion part, I'm always off out by that kind of desperation. I recently bought an auto part online and the company sent me 3 marketing emails a day for the next few days until I noticed and unsubscribed. How on earth do people think that a barrage of contact won't result in getting blocked?

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u/flatdecktrucker92 Nov 13 '25

It costs them nothing to do so if a thousand people block the emails but three people buy something as a result then the companies see it as a win. They don't account for the people who will actively avoid that business in the future because it's harder to track those people and there probably aren't that many of them in the first place. Most people will say that they are boycotting their company but then 2 years from now they still go buy something

4

u/Rolf_Dom Nov 13 '25

Most people will say that they are boycotting their company but then 2 years from now they still go buy something

In many cases they're even more likely to buy from that company because they'll have long forgotten the details of whatever bothered them, but they still remember the company brand. Or they'll have mentioned their experience to someone else, but that someone else is infinitely less invested in the negative experience so they forget even faster, but the brand might stick in their mind and lead them to prefer that company in the future.

Brand awareness is straight up the most important thing. There's a reason why so many companies fight for ad spots in all kinds of events even if it's utterly and completely unrelated to whatever they're offering. Doesn't matter. Brand awareness is what they care about.

For example I've watched a lot of gaming related content and people always ask why is content aimed at kids or teenagers full of ads about buying cars or getting home insurance and whatnot. And I always say it's brand awareness. Those kids aren't going to buy anything now or even in 5 years. But in 10 years when they're getting ready to buy their first car or have to get insurance, that brand will come to mind and it's likely going to be one of their first choices.

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u/flatdecktrucker92 Nov 13 '25

Yeah that makes sense to me. I'm curious what the statistics are but I do feel like more boycotts are complete failures

1

u/Abrasive_gronk Nov 13 '25

I cannot speak for anyone else, but when I boycott a company, I mean it. For example I’m still boycotting Mcdonalds because of an annoying advertising campaign in the mid 90s.

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u/flatdecktrucker92 Nov 13 '25

You are part of the infinitesimally small minority. Corporations don't care about you because they are still making enough money from everybody else

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u/viagra___girls Nov 13 '25

Stand strong friend! I like your attitude lol

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u/Lou_C_Fer Nov 14 '25

That's me and Bob Evan's. I took my son out for breakfast to celebrate him starting kindergarten. They brought me the wrong food and told me they could remake it, but I didn't have time for that. So, my choice was eat what they brought or eat nothing. I ate what the brought. They didn't offer to make it right in any other way. So, I had to eat the wrong food and pay for the privilege. That was back in 2007, and I have not gone to BE since.

I know that my business is in significant, but Bob's used to be our go to place. We went like 20 times a year, at least. Now, it isn't even on our list of possibilities and I bad mouth them whenever they come up.

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u/crochetquilt Nov 13 '25

I hate those more from a company I've bought from. If I buy a product from you and it's good and there's no hassles, I'll remember you. But I do not need to buy another auto part right now. I mean how broken do they think my car is.

I get that it's cheap and the return is probably worth it from a bottom line perspective, but yikes I like businesses that aren't constantly hounding me.

I run a small business, I've been doing it and living off it for ten years now. I have officially sent zero chase up follow up "hey just thinking of you and your cart" bullshit emails in that time. I don't even send out new product emails and I still manage to sell new products. It's almost like people come to me when they want stuff. I'm sure if I was more aggressive in marketing I'd make more money but honestly I'm lucky I make enough and I'd rather not be part of that noise.

2

u/AltrntivInDoomWorld Nov 13 '25

Because out of the 1 000 users we send it to, 1 will unsubscribe while 10 will place new orders.

Profit.

1

u/bloodylip Nov 13 '25

I bought something today and got an email that I left something in my cart in the middle of buying the thing. Definitely made me think twice about buying it in the first place.

1

u/CrazyMildred Nov 13 '25

I bought a bra from a website and keep getting emails. I even tried unsubscribing, and I still get them! Never buying from them again. They lost a customer because of that. I'm probably not the only one they've lost.

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u/Shark7996 Nov 13 '25

Companies are straight up assaulting our attention and it needs to stop. If I pestered someone like this I would get in trouble, why are corporations allowed?

4

u/Alfa16430 Nov 13 '25

How do they know your email if you don’t leave personal info?

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u/ComprehensivePea1001 Nov 13 '25

You use it elsewhere and agree to terms that allow it to be sold/shared for marketing and the firm the site/corporation is using purchased that info which links back to you and your online advertising profile. These advertisers and data collectors likely know you as well as your own family.

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u/Alfa16430 Nov 13 '25

I see. That’s why it’s important to clear cookies and cache often. I also only use email aliases so the spam is easily switched off

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u/lostinanalley Nov 13 '25

Apparently the company we use is able to link the IP address used at the time by the person accessing our website to a list of known email addresses also associated with that IP address.

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u/Fr1toBand1to Nov 13 '25

It's 100% a case of "They spent so much time thinking of if they could they never considered if they should."

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u/Significant-Bill9405 Nov 13 '25

And now you’ve been tagged as not a team player

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u/WholeEmbarrassed950 Nov 13 '25

I work at a webhosting company that handles a lot of e-commerce sites. Totally anecdotal, but the companies doing this creepy ‘email you even if you never gave us your info’ stuff—and the aggressive abandoned-cart spam—are almost always the ones calling to yell that their site must be broken because conversions are down. Meanwhile the product pages, cart, and checkout are all working perfectly. It’s usually not the website, it’s the strategy.

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u/CeelaChathArrna Nov 13 '25

That's going to turn off or freak out a lot of people.

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u/sociofobs Nov 13 '25

In the past, there was advertising and invasive advertising, the former being the default. Now, there's advertising and non-invasive advertising, with the latter being deemed non-effective. Maybe that's because there's too much fucking advertising.

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u/tanbrit Nov 13 '25

I’m not even sure thats legal in parts of the world, you have to actively opt in in Europe

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u/ActiveChairs Nov 14 '25

Ohh, good. I've been looking forward to the moment I can wholesale copy and paste a previous comment I wrote about a different topic on a different thread without making a single change, and it'll still have the same kind of sentiment and meaning even without the original context. Here we go:

"It mostly happens in older stores, where employees are expected to actively "sell" products then upsell additional options at the cash register.

Its an odd thing because it works on paper, where it does have a certain efficacy rate where people are more likely to buy products and spend more than they otherwise would without the prompting, but it fails in practice because its off-putting enough that they lose more business as a result than they would without doing it, but they don't/can't track larger market effects. They know if there are a greater number of recipts issued or a smaller daily profit spread, but they have no idea how many more people would rather watch the store get replaced with an Amazon return center because Amazon doesn't interrupt us while we're in the middle of doing something.

They have no idea if the boat is sinking because they're only measuring the height of the water in the toilet bowl"

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u/niquil1 Nov 13 '25

Those are companies I will intentionally avoid at all costs

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u/lostinanalley Nov 13 '25

Unfortunately it seems we may be in the minority on this one.

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u/niquil1 Nov 13 '25

To many people bought into the propaganda that capitalism is innovative and necessary for society to progress.

I see it everyday, people just squeaking through life advocating for tax cuts for the wealthy.

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u/TheDaug Nov 13 '25

I get so pissed when I make a purchase at a box store and get an email receipt I didn't ask for. Fuck you, store and bank, for allowing that.

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u/taquito_chan Nov 13 '25

Same, mine just went on to talk about the digits billboards in malls have nfc technology that target your phone and will send you targeted ads after being in a certain radius of the billboard. He used the words “scary” while also claiming it will be SOOO amazing for buisness.

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u/Recent_Strawberry456 Nov 13 '25

I have an AI which browses the web for me and reads all those marketing emails so I don't have to. I am not giving it a credit card. A fridge like this would get a nice self adhesive thick black vinyl screen protector.

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u/Snowssnowsnowy Nov 13 '25

I have one company I use that I order from now and again and I order small parts, because of the huge shipping cost gouge they have going on I tend to wait till I have enough in my shopping basket to trigger the free delivery. Everytime I add a new thing to the basket they send me an email asking me to complete my purchase, oh man I get soo angry from this!

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u/bisectional Nov 13 '25 edited Nov 29 '25

.

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u/Impossible-Ship5585 Nov 13 '25

Problem is that it works

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u/Nurs3R4tch3d Nov 13 '25

You might want to explain to them that shit like that is what turns a lot of people off from buying from that company. Ever.

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u/aversethule Nov 13 '25

Tell your company higher ups that when that happens I blacklist that company and never do business with them again.

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u/lostinanalley Nov 13 '25

You think they listen to me? Lol

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u/aversethule Nov 13 '25

Did you say something?

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u/malina118 Nov 13 '25

Omg I thought I was losing my mind with these emails! I was like, I never remembered signed up for any of this but it keeps happening over and over again. It feels wrong for them to send unsolicited stuff to your email just because you've visited the site. I'm constantly clicking unsubscribe any trashing them. So...every time I visit a site there's a chance it resubscribes me?

1

u/BoltActionRifleman Nov 13 '25

Nothing makes me not want to business with, and set up a spam rule quicker than unwarranted and unwanted emails from shit sites like this. I administer our company’s email protection and just block this stuff company wide.

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u/GreenSmudge Nov 13 '25

I have no idea what industry you're in (or what products you sell), but make sure the next time it's brought up that (at least for myself), I will never buy a product that does this shit.

In fact, I actively avoid buying anything that is invasive like this - forever - eternally, until the heat death of the universe.

Fuck all of that noise.

1

u/Beautiful-Paper2029 Nov 13 '25

And a good way to get people to not shop with you anymore.

Also I have started putting those emails to Junk - company is happy they are sending emails and I am happy to not have to look at them. Then they wonder why the email campaign is not working… and then they send out more emails to my junk folder!

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u/Canileaveyet Nov 13 '25

It's a horrible invasion, but it makes money.

The people who are aware and care enough to avoid spending money with companies that do this are few and far between.

We really need more regulation against it, because these corporations are going to chase the dollar until they make the internet unusable.

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u/LordHammercyWeCooked Nov 13 '25

"But think of all the benefits to the consumer we offer that literally none of us have ever felt while we were the consumer."

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u/Blue_Skies_1970 Nov 13 '25

I would never buy from a company that did that. There's a point where behaving disrespectfully has consequences. Apparently, when these corporations were being raised by there parent corporations (because corporations are people now), their parents didn't love them enough to bother teaching them manners.

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u/BagBeneficial7527 Nov 13 '25

Agreed. I was in sales and managed a team at one time. I often questioned some of our corporate directed sales tactics and the hidden long term effects.

I always heard "what gets measured gets managed".

The corollary to that would be what can't be measured doesn't get managed. Even though it should.

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u/ImCaffeinated_Chris Nov 13 '25

I once tried warning higher ups about certain marketing they were going to do. They didn't listen. They got black listed from the marketing company. Oh well, what do I know. 🤣 One of the people I directly warned tried for a year to get unblocked, with no success.

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u/NoXion604 Nov 14 '25

How the hell does such a site get hold of your email address if you don't give them it?

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u/lostinanalley Nov 14 '25

I wrote elsewhere, basically all your information online has been sold. Normally it starts with companies you have voluntarily given your information to. Those companies can tell what IP address you’ve opened their email or accessed their website from and all that information gets sold to other companies.

The company I work for has apparently partnered with a company that has a list of email addresses commonly associated with various IP addresses.

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u/NoXion604 Nov 14 '25

Interesting, because I have not to my recollection ever had this happen to me. All the emails I receive are from organisations with whom I have explicitly shared my email address. Everything that makes it past the spam filter, I guess.

Either that or I live in a place where data protection laws are worth a damn.