Hi David, On Mon, Apr 19, 2010 at 03:03:24PM +0100, David wrote: > What does everybody think about these certifications? >
In late 2008, LPI-UK sent me what I considered at the time to be several pieces of uninteresting unsolicited email. After asking how they got my address it turned out that I had once expressed an interest in an LPI exam at a FOSDEM event and LPI shared my email address with all of their affiliates, which is allowed in the "small print" of their privacy policy (so not technically unsolicited). I attempted to unsubscribe from the marketing mail (which itself contained no unsubscribe link) but got an error from the LPI mailman instance. In all it took 7 weeks and several back and forth emails with Bill Quinn for me to be removed from this marketing list, during which time I received several more marketing emails, some of which were duplicates of the other. Some excuses given for the inability to unsubscribe me included: "Due to Canadian Data Protection Law, I / LPI-UK can not view or alter the names on the mailing list. I can only make a formal request to LPI to remove you from the list." I was not the only person to experience this; see thread starting at: http://lists.gllug.org.uk/pipermail/gllug/2008-October/074599.html I received no apology for this at the time, and only later when someone brought up the incident again on a mailing list and I chipped in with my account of my experience did Bill apologise to me on behalf of LPI-UK. Unfortunately in that same email he called me a liar over my claim of receiving duplicates of the same marketing. My mail box disagreed with him: Date: Tue, 9 Dec 2008 17:19:01 -0500 From: Scott Lamberton <slamber...@lpi.org> Subject: Upcoming LPI Webcasts: December 17th Date: Fri, 12 Dec 2008 10:22:03 +0000 From: Bill Quinn <bill.qu...@lpi-uk.org> Subject: [lpi-alumni-uk] Free LPI Webcasts As a result of this I personally will never have dealings with LPI-UK or Linux-IT. I have not experienced anything bad from any other LPI affiliate but since taking an LPI exam requires giving LPI your email, and LPI's privacy policy says they will share your details with their affiliates, I can't recommend that either. I hope that Linux-IT's understanding of customer service and the UK Data Protection Act has improved in the last ~16 months. As it happens I do hold several Linux and IT-related certifications, all of which are associated with more "enterprisey" corporations than LPI, and none of them aggressively market to me in this manner. Cheers, Andy
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