back to article Facebook testing $100 fee to mail Mark Zuckerberg

Got something you'd like to say to Mark Zuckerberg? The Facebook CEO still maintains a profile on the social networking site he founded, but beginning on Friday, sending him a personal message could cost you. Mashable was the first to notice that some users who weren't otherwise on the Behoodied One's Friends list were being …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Like this

    Providing he and his lackeys promise not to sue based on the content, $100 to email the hooded boy-wonder my feelings about Facebook seems cheap for the amount of pleasure I'd get from the writing.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Like this

      I think you might have missed the point- if someone wants to spam you, Facebook get the cash and you get spam.

      * * *

      Here's a fine BBC homage to Facebook stalking... [Man hiding in bush with binoculars]: "F$^£ you Zuckerberg, I'm keeping it old-school"

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        AC 01:40

        I think you might've missed my point too.

        1. Ole Juul

          Re: AC 01:40

          A bit too much AC said to AC said to AC going on there. Will the real AC please stand up?

          Regardless, I think writing to Zuckerberg is a waste of time and I'd want at least $100. Charging me is certainly an insult.

    2. Gerhard Mack

      Re: Like this

      The sad thing is I bet a lot of people would happily pay $100 for an attempt at selling him ideas to invest in.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Nicer when the fee goes to charity

      Here's a variant on the model: <a href="http://www.oneleap.com">OneLeap</a> allows you to contact influential people, with a fee to stop time-wasters that goes to charity.

      Maybe Facebook should do likewise and pledge the fees to charity - ideally a charity chosen by the message recipient rather than Zuck's pet project.

      Furthermore, I think the recipient should set the fee level, not Facebook.

    4. LarsG
      Meh

      Is there

      Is there nothing they will do to get publicity?

      1. badger31

        Re: Is there

        They truly are the Ryan Air of the internet.

      2. Euripides Pants
        Thumb Down

        Re: Is there

        Its not about the publicity, Zuck needs the money after the IPO fiasco.

    5. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Ok

      But then he gets 100,000 emails, will he really answer them personally?

      I don't thinks so, some underling will write back to you pretending to be his Majesty, but will he let you ask for your money back or will it be in the amended terms and conditions?

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I can see this being extended to MPs in the UK.

    An option to send a message to the MP £100, plus another option to get them to ask a message in parliament £100,000.

    1. Dave 126 Silver badge

      Does that include the 19p for a brown paper envelope?

      1. Danny 14

        I thought that already existed. The question to parliament is called "party donation" option and the question to mp is "dinner at the club"

        Thats certainly how things work round here with the amount of planning permission for new homes (when there is a backlog of decent homes on the market already without needing to drain the floodplains)

    2. This post has been deleted by its author

  3. JeevesMkII
    Mushroom

    I wonder if I could charge..

    Facebook a hundred bucks each time they spam me. You're never going to get me to sign up, you cocksuckers. No matter how many of my friends you've already ensnared.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Devil

    There has *got* to be a way to game this. Got to, got to, got to. The stench of money is in the air, boys - keep your nostrils open!

    1. dssf

      Is there much or any risk that....

      Just to kill this line of business, hackers/crackers might just raid banking accounts and paypal cards and apply to them charges from reaching all the MPs, behoodiedones, majesties, etc? Might be a way to inform more of the world of whom the behoodied one is just in case....

      But, how about the reverse scenario of paying $100 to talk to somone. What if we can charge the tax authorities, city council, etc, to get a piece of OUR time. Wait... I must be off my purple pill....Or, is it green today?

    2. Barry Penge

      I smell blood in the business waters(TM).

  5. Neil Woolford

    Cheap at..

    fifty dollars a word.

    1. Rukario

      Re: Cheap at..

      Cheap at $12.50 per character

    2. Lord Elpuss Silver badge

      Re: Cheap at..

      I'm thinking more of $25 per letter.

      1. Anonymous IV
        Facepalm

        Re: Cheap at..

        How ironic if the maximum message length to Lord Zuckerberg was set at 140 characters...

      2. Gannon (J.) Dick
        Happy

        Re: Cheap at..

        Well, if you abreviate ... We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram

  6. Darkwolf

    If facebook were smart...

    they would allow the users to setup an option to PERMIT charging and to set a price on incoming messages.

    30% goes to the profile owner, 70% goes to facebook for example.

    I would put mine at $2 and start putting my facebook addy on lots of spam lists.

    1. g e
      Holmes

      Re: If facebook were smart...

      Just set it at 5p per message or something tiny then troll the Justin Bieber, animal rights and Warmist pages.

      A million pennies is much better than a tenner :o)

  7. MikeyBigTime
    Linux

    Gosh, how very GREEDY of Mr Z.

    Facebook is the next MySpace, of course. Why? Because my 85 year old grandmother is on Facebook.

  8. Hutch!
    Big Brother

    What did you expect?

    Facebook seems to be more and more desperate for revenue, whether it's selling users' info, barraging with irrelevant ads, or offering to allow anyone to send you a message for a dollar, this doesn't surprise me honestly, just makes me wonder whats next...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      Re: What did you expect?

      I do have a facebook account that is almost NEVER ever used, and has nothing in it..... as you need to have one to contact any other user...

      And I am getting almost daily emails, "You have more friends on Facebook than you think."

      Well I don't "think", and if they know this to be true, then they ought to contact "all my friends" that I don't know anything about, and then get them to contact me, at my "None De Plume" almost pointless and worthless facebook account.

      So telling me that I can pay to send messages... yeah and.... the person on the other end, where is the proof that they have even read it, or have even gone, "Select All" + "Delete".

      "Oh my inbox has 20 million hate messages at $100 a pop" - I will ignore them and only use my internal corporate email account for my meaningful contacts, and phone for my business and personal contacts... and the rest of them, I shall ignore them all - the dumb fucks", says Mark.

      Smiley - the irony of the bullshit is not lost on me.

      1. Daniel Johnson

        Re: What did you expect?

        I set up a Facebook account for my cat a few weeks ago (in case I need to login to the site for any reason, not because I'm mental).

        Apparently, my cat also has more friends on Facebook than he thinks. He gets emails about it everyday.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: What did you expect?

          @Daniel Johnson

          Obviously lots of people wish to tag your pussy ;)

        2. Fihart

          Re: What did you expect?

          Cat's name on Facebook instead of own -- just to confuse their marketing gits. They dare not expel users with fake names or they'd lose half the membership.

          Let's face it, at least 50% of FB posts seem to be pictures of feckin cute kitties and puppies, anyway.

          1. Danny 14

            Re: What did you expect?

            I see a trend, my cat also has a facebook account which I use to sign up to various "you arent getting my details son" pages. After a friend of mine tagged some random stranger in one of their photos as my cat I started to get some random hits and spam.

            Evil stuff and I cannot believe the amount of people who put their REAL details on there. Nuts.

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: What did you expect?

              " After a friend of mine tagged some random stranger in one of their photos as my cat I started to get some random hits and spam."

              ...meanwhile, the random stranger is trying to figure out why he's getting ads for cat food.

  9. Ketlan
    Devil

    Quandary...

    $100 is a lot of money. On the other hand, telling that creepy git to fuck off is a lot of pleasure. Decisions, decisions...

  10. Dazed and Confused

    How about the reverse?

    Can I charge FB $100 for each crappy message they send me?

    I could afford to retire on that.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: How about the reverse?

      Might be able to solve world debt. ;)

      1. Danny 14

        Re: How about the reverse?

        no, they'll just give you $100 worth of stock.

  11. This post has been deleted by its author

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Its more wide spread that you may think.. but it works

    We use a similar system for our customer emailing, we pay a company tens of thousand dollars a year, in return we get Whitelisted with Yahoo, Hotmail, BT and a few other mail providers.

    We handle financial services for our customers, so when a spam filter sees our emails it goes mental because of the wording we have to use to explain situations and products to customers (Finance, conditions, repayments, free blah blah). Before somebodies says to tell a customer to check their junk email folder, we DO, but many people either don't bother or simply have no clue.

    Also some people will probably say this is profiteering. Before you do, remember its costs a lot of money to run these email services, the money we pay for the Whitelisting is re-invested in the Anti-spam systems and research into improving them. Additionally their are very strict compliance rules which are monitored and heavily enforced, if you break them, then you lose the whitelisting with no refund!

    1. jake Silver badge

      @AC09:50 (was: Re: Its more wide spread that you may think.. but it works)

      "We use a similar system for our customer emailing, we pay a company tens of thousand dollars a year, in return we get Whitelisted with Yahoo, Hotmail, BT and a few other mail providers."

      Huh? I call bullshit. A third party can't white-list any email system I've ever been in charge of. Prove me wrong. Name that third party.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @AC09:50 (was: Its more wide spread that you may think.. but it works)

        @ Jake - Check it it out http://www.returnpath.com/solution-content/return-path-certification/

        Still call bullshit :)

    2. DaLo

      Re: Its more wide spread that you may think.. but it works

      Wouldn't SPF be a better way to do this and for free?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Its more wide spread that you may think.. but it works

        DaLo - SPF and DKIM is part of the requirement for the whitelisting. See the link I posted below for Jake. Essentially the company who provides the whitelisting runs part on the Anti-spam systems for the likes of Hotmail and Yahoo etc.

        1. jake Silver badge

          @AC:10:49 (was:Re: Its more wide spread that you may think.. but it works)

          "DaLo - SPF and DKIM"

          No. Just no. Whitelisting isn't possible by a third-party, by definition.

          Enjoy the snake-oil. And the spam.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: @AC:10:49 (was:Its more wide spread that you may think.. but it works)

            Blah Blah Blah Blah

            The jake has spoken, you are all wrong

        2. DaLo

          Re: Its more wide spread that you may think.. but it works

          You can whitelist your address with third-party e-mail providers but you can do it yourself for free. I'm guessing this is how these 'certification companies' work they just fill out the forms for you.

          I don't know why someone would pay a company thousands to do this. As long as you use best-practice guidelines for the relevant e-mail provider including SPF, domain keys, fixed IPs and fill out the forms (a couple of hours work at most) and then don't spam or be tagged as spam by a user and bingo your mail will have a high chance of being delivered.

          1. streaky
            Facepalm

            Re: Its more wide spread that you may think.. but it works

            The returnpath whitelist is a proven nonsense, if you get blacklisted you'll get kicked out anyways and also if you're not prone to blacklisting why do you need whitelisting?

            Moreover I personally wouldn't do business with anybody who even considered using it to allow emails I'd ordinarily shit-can to skirt round my filters. See the problem right?

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Its more wide spread that you may think.. but it works

              @ Streaky

              That is definitely not the experience we've had, we've seen a 3-4x increase response from emails since. In regards to blacklisting, if you get on a major list then you may find your Whitelisting / Certification is suspended, but it can be re-instated once you've been removed from the blacklist.

              I'd suggest actually your better of doing business with us, Whitelisting is NOT a one way street, we don't pay a large sum of money and then get carte-blanche to spam people. Far from it, we have to run a whiter-than-white email system. To get certified takes 3-4 months of external auditors combing through

              1) Our Email traffic and logs with a fine tooth comb

              2) Check our company historying

              2) Going over our websites to ensure our unsubscribe process is quick, easy and effective

              3) Our policy on Data protection is effective and we don't send unsolicited emails

              Even after being Whitelisted we are constantly monitored to ensure we don't abuse the privilege and continue to ensure users details are treated with the up most respect.

              1. streaky
                Facepalm

                Re: Its more wide spread that you may think.. but it works

                "Whitelisting is NOT a one way street, we don't pay a large sum of money and then get carte-blanche to spam people. Far from it, we have to run a whiter-than-white email system"

                But here's the thing, why do you need then whitelisting? Doesn't make /any/ sense at all. If you're putting in that much effort, your emails won't have any issues getting through anybody's spam filters and you're extremely unlikely to end up on any blacklists..

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: Its more wide spread that you may think.. but it works

                  @ Streaky

                  We spend an incredible amount of time on the quality of emailing, from the email structure, to the systems that send the email. But we have a few things which run against us

                  1) the emails we send have a lot of financial related terminology which unfortunately is often buzzed around by spammers.

                  2) We send a large volume of emails.

                  When an email is spam "scored", these factors increase the likely hood of an email being sent to the junk email. The whitelisting we use is almost like a counter agent, it also has a few other perks.

              2. jake Silver badge

                @AC14:10Re: Its more wide spread that you may think.. but it works

                "we've seen a 3-4x increase response from emails since."

                So instead of shotgunning spam at everyone on the "500 million email addresses, guaranteed!!!" DVD, you are targeting spam at proven idiots? Personally, I only email folks with my advertising if they, themselves, actually ask to be emailed. Opt-in is good. Opt-out doesn't scale.

                Paying a third-party for promotion is contra-indicated in any "Hi! We're doing this" situation.

                I don't know how you can sleep with yourself, AC-spammer.

                But I'm not surprised that you're AC, coward.

                1. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: @AC14:10Its more wide spread that you may think.. but it works

                  "I only email folks with my advertising if they, themselves, actually ask to be emailed"

                  That's the point doofus! Making sure that the emails people have opted into (or not out of depending on the implementation) actually arrive at their inbox and are not filtered out by the email provider

                  The company has to prove they are not spamming people to get whitelisted

                  Jeez

                2. Anonymous Coward
                  Anonymous Coward

                  Re: @AC14:10Its more wide spread that you may think.. but it works

                  @ Jake wrote "you are targeting spam at proven idiots"

                  As I explained, these emails are to customers that have purchased financial products from us and requested information sent to them. Its in the customers interest that the information arrives in their inbox!

                  Who the f*ck mentioned anything about opt-in or opt-out? Its because of morons like you that people chose to use A/C. Now in future, make sure you are familiar with something before comment on it :)

  13. jake Silver badge

    Other way around, Zuckerberg.

    Want me to email you? You pay me.

    Kids these days ...

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    The bit everyone missed ..

    .. is that by paying Facebook, they now have your payment details as well. The next "innovation" will be that Facebook will buy all the stuff for you that their system thinks you need.. If not, it provides at least some more sellable tracking data for those nice folks at the NSA:::

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It would be cheaper...

    to buy 1 x share in FB and then, as a shareholder, demand your right to email the Zuckster whenever you feel like it.

    1. Danny 14

      Re: It would be cheaper...

      people are buying FB stock?

  16. Joseph Haig

    Old news

    Isn't this the same story as this? http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/21/facebook_paid_message_delivery/

    Someone has just noticed that Mr Z is on the list of members in the trial. $100 does seem a bit steep, though. Does it vary for who you want to mail?

  17. Christoph
    Pirate

    What other official Facebook addresses charge?

    How much will they be charging to email their help desk?

    How many messages at what fee will you have to send every time you want to opt out of their latest trick to sell off all your private information?

    1. MachDiamond Silver badge

      Re: What other official Facebook addresses charge?

      ummmm, you can't opt out of their latest trick to sell off your private information. There are stock holders to think of now. Be sure your barcode is prominently displayed.

  18. Lord Elpuss Silver badge

    Cheaper way

    1. Buy a share in Facebook

    2. Exercise your shareholder rights to mail the CEO.

    Unlike the other biz model, this way will get cheaper and cheaper too, the way FB shares are going.

    1. Dazed and Confused

      Re: Cheaper way

      > Unlike the other biz model, this way will get cheaper and cheaper too, the way FB shares are going.

      wait another couple of months and for $100 you'll be the majority share holder then Zuck will have to listen to you.

      1. pepper

        Re: Cheaper way

        Actually, just for giggles I decided to check the Facebook shareprice... And amazingly it has been climbing again to 30$, up from a low of 17 something I believe... Bit of a WTF moment, because someone is seeing something in it, or its just a bubble.

  19. nuked
    Alert

    This is just the first of a series of more invasive changes to Facebook. They've now floated so have zero considerations aside from making as much money as possible. It's now their legal duty to their shareholders.

    Finding the balance between acceptable revenue generation, and maintaining the 'trust' between Facebook and it's users is their challenge. One they're course to biblically fail at achieving. Should be interesting and quite funny though.

  20. Another User
    Joke

    Cheaper to put message on bank transfer

    At least somebody will read your message.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Irony of Facebook

    Mark, you have blown this money making idea by letting the world know you are married to Priscilla Chan.

    If you were single all the ladies might have paid the $100 fee to mail you.

    It looks like you have been outdone by your very own invention.

    Some things are better kept private and not on Facebook.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Serious inquiries only

    It might be worth it for those to send in their job resumes for $100.

  23. jonfr
    FAIL

    Bankruptcy of Facebook

    I am sure that bankruptcy of Facebook is going to be interesting. At least it is going to mark the start of something interesting.

    End of social networks as we know them today. They are going to be marked as a bad idea in human history and are going to be treated as such.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Bankruptcy of Facebook

      Bit of wishful thinking on your part there. Facebook - and social networks in general - are certainly overinflated, but they're still garnering eyeballs, generating clicks and getting hold of people's preferences and data, and there's still enough money to be made from that to make it a viable business model.

  24. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Some sort of award in order for Zuckerberg

    "Unashamed douchebag of the year" award perhaps?

  25. streaky
    Mushroom

    Microsoft

    Didn't they patent something very similar with actual emails years ago and everybody laughed them out the room?

    Set fee for sending email, if it's legit you get refunded. Thus *in theory* reducing spam.

    Personally I advocate cutting fibre (also cruise missiles in extreme circumstances) to datacenters who allow spam or outbound IP spoofing, but apparently I'm in a minority.

  26. Zog The Undeniable
    Devil

    Facebook. It's free and always will be.

    Apart from this bit. And this. And this.

  27. Purlieu

    Why

    Why in fucks name should I want to email Mark Zuckerberg ?

    I already know more than he'll ever learn, IT-wise, life-wise, management-wise, etc etc etc.

    I'm over 60 so I'm not kidding, he should learn from me.

    Downvoters: think first for once eh chaps

  28. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    This is just moronic

    So, not only can a hacker email nudie pics from your hacked Facebook account, he can also empty your bank account in the process. Just for fun.

  29. TeeCee Gold badge
    Happy

    I can see where this goes.

    Next week: Mark Zuckerberg logs in to find a thousand abusive emails and a credit card bill for 100 grand's worth of Facebook email services.....

    1. Colin Millar
      Coat

      Re: I can see where this goes.

      So that would be self-abuse emails then?

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