Used for cross product promotion (see edit)

  • gecko_guy

    (@gecko_guy)


    7 years ago

    (title edited – original title was SPAM PLUGIN) – see comments for reasons.

    I’m not happy with this at all. I installed the WP Mail SMTP plugin by this developer, who is now using that as a way to inject unwanted spam promoting a Black Friday deal to purchase the Pro version of this plugin.

    This is really shady. What gives you the right to inject spam for self promotion of one plugin because I happen to be using another one?

    Needless to say I am now also going to be removing the SMTP plugin. I will never install a plugin by this developer again.

    • This topic was modified 7 years ago by gecko_guy. Reason: Author responded quickly, no longer believe this was malicious
Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
  • Plugin Author Syed Balkhi

    (@smub)

    Hi Gecko_Guy,

    Our intention is never to annoy any of our users.

    This notice is sent via our announcement feed to users who are using our WPForms Lite plugin or our WP Mail SMTP plugin to let them know about the limited time deal that we have going on, so they can take advantage of it.

    It will only show if you have one of our two plugins active on your site, and you can easily dismiss the notice by clicking the Close button.

    I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you. We are also going to take your feedback to account and push out a fix so you can easily disable the announcement feed with an easy checkbox in the settings.

    -Syed Balkhi
    Co-Founder of WPForms

    Thread Starter gecko_guy

    (@gecko_guy)

    Hello,

    Since you copy/pasted your reply to the support ticket I submitted, I’ll do the same in response here.

    I will also change the title and star rating since you have responded, which I do appreciate, although I’ve uninstalled the other plugin and won’t be using any of these products again (broken trust).

    My initial reaction was a bit strong, but I was feeling alarmed at the time.

    I don’t use this plugin, I’ve never used it, so to suddenly see a promotional message about a plugin I’ve never even heard of before suddenly appear in my dashboard set all kinds of alarm bells ringing.

    There was no way for me to know what the source of this unwanted message was until I started investigating. I had to use the browser dev tools to track down the source, and then had to investigate further by examining your profile here in WP, which is when I noticed that you are also the developer of a different plugin that I use.

    Waste of time, and alarming.

    This is my reply in the support ticket I posted:

    Ok, I’m pleased you will take the feedback on board.

    I would not have felt so annoyed if I was actually using this plugin, but you used one of your other plugins to inject a promotional message into my dashboard making me think I had somehow been hacked.

    If I had this plugin installed I would still have been irritated, but there was no indication that the message was actually coming from a different plugin.

    I’ve now uninstalled the SMTP plugin also because of this.

    I also respect the right for plugin authors who provide free plugins to the community to insert advertising in the settings panels of the plugin, but I will never respect authors who inject promotional messages directly into the WP Dashboard, and especially not for cross promotion of a different product that I’m not even using.

Viewing 2 replies - 1 through 2 (of 2 total)
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