Tom's Hardware users data is passed to '3rd party' websites and users are registered to '3rd party' memberships

[Zaporro]

I wrote 3rd party in " " for a reason but you will see why later.

Today in my mailbox, which email address is used only in selected few sites (so i know where each mail comes from), a 6 new mails appeared within span of 1 minute.

All of the mails came from "Purch Perks" email@emails.purch.com and it wasn't regular spam. The mails contained phrases like "you just became part of a membership program" and in explanation why i received such mail they wrote:

"You are receiving this promotional email from Purch Perks because
you're a member of Purch Perks."

But i did not register to such things so i started digging and not long after i found this handy list of sites owned by Purch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purch_Group and amongst them whole Tom's network.

Well, it turns out when you register to Tom's Hardware, you are actually registering to the owner Purch.com who is administrator of your personal data and at the same time you probably become a member of every other website and service owned by Purch right now and in future, and just i found out today, at any time they can suddenly make you a "member" or enlist you for "membership" in any kind of Purch owned service at any time.

I find such policy highly invasive and obnoxious, especially the wording in Purch Perk spam which implies that i signed up for something.

 

[Saga Lout]

I've been here seven years and haven't had any such Spam even though I get tons of the stuff courtesy of the useless mob who host my website.

I find your complaint a bit odd because when you signed up for your account in Tom's, you agreed to our Terms and Conditions. One of those is that advertising and self-promotion is not allowed yet your signature is full of it.

The reality is wherever you open an account, you hand over personal information which gets misused. Google elevated it to an art form and Microsoft are on it now and they sell the information.

We all have to rely on our Spam filters to keep the rubbish at bay.

 

[Jsimenhoff]

Wow, jeez I am sorry for all those e-mails. We designed that messaging system with the user experience in mind. They were written to be friendly, inviting, and get you to back to the site or any of our other sites as well. Looks like we or the system goofed. I'm passing this feedback along to our newsletter team. Also, if you need any help unsubscribing from those membership e-mails just hit me up directly: Community@purch.com.

Purch is our parent company. So when you say 3rd parties, it's more like 1st party or same party. If you want to check out our privacy policy linked here you can do so here. Becoming a member of any Purch site does grant you access to the Perch Perks program. This program is designed to seamlessly and easily let you save on everyday purchases. It is not a nefarious plot and definitely something you don't have to dig around to learn about.