We Need Your Help

By | March 20, 2017

We Need Your Help

When a big company like Yahoo has two historic security breeches that affected nearly a billion subscribers, it not only affected the Yahoo subscribers who had their personal information compromised, it seriously impacted small companies like ours.

Since the Yahoo debacle, we’ve lost over 6000 of our newsletter subscribers, and that has negatively affected every aspect of our business. And we’re pretty sure we are not the only small business that has been negatively impacted by Yahoo’s problems.

How did we lose over 6000 subscribers? The way our mail lists work – and it’s pretty standard in the industry – is when the newsletters we send are not delivered to a subscriber after a certain number of attempts, the subscriber is automatically removed from the list. In the aftermath of the breaches, Yahoo started to systematically block our newsletters from almost every one of our Yahoo subscribers.

It seems apparent to us, that Yahoo’s response to their own security failures was to start, arbitrarily and without cause, blocking mail from senders Yahoo didn’t recognize – Cloudeight being one of them. This seems to us to have been an attempt by Yahoo, to reassure its remaining subscribers that they were aggressively shoring up glaring and serious problems with their security.

In short, we lost 6000+ Yahoo subscribers. Frankly, it’s going to be impossible to get them all back We don’t have the manpower to try to write each Yahoo subscriber personally and tell them why they are no longer getting our newsletter. And even if they tried to re-subscribe, Yahoo would still block our newsletter.

So, tonight, we are reaching out to you to ask for your help. If each of you would tell just one friend of family about our newsletters – by sharing a link to our subscription pages via email or social media, we would truly appreciate it.  We know we are never going to be able to get back the 6000+ Yahoo subscribers we lost, but we would like to ask your help in getting some subscribers to help make up for those we lost.

Please consider sharing one or both of the links below via email or social media:

Subscribe to Cloudeight InfoAve Premium Weekly computer tips & tricks newsletter at:
http://thundercloud.net/infoave/join.htm

Subscribe to Cloudeight InfoAve Daily tips & tricks newsletter at:
http://thundercloud.net/start/subscribe.htm

Both newsletters are free of charge.

If you enjoy our newsletters and would like to help, we hope you’ll take a moment an help us grow our mail list by sharing the links above. It won’t cost you a penny and it would mean a lot to us.

Thanks so much!

 

 

 

 

 

 

26 thoughts on “We Need Your Help

  1. Betty (Australia)

    What a shame that you have been compromised…I will certainly share your links with my friends as you have been such a wonderful help to me over many years, so keep up the good work….there should be more like you out there.

    Reply
    1. infoave Post author

      We have not been compromised, Yahoo was compromised. After they were compromised, they decided, rather than to fix the problems, they decided to go on this masquerade of making it look like they are doing something. One of those things was to start arbitrarily blocking emails from senders like Cloudeight – who carry no clout, have no money to go to court, and who are easy targets. Blocking our newsletters, to make it appear Yahoo was doing something to shore up its aging infrastructure and poor security policies becuase it was easy to do.

      We want to make it clear, we were not compromised, we have never been compromised. We simply wanted you to know that our newsletters were blocked by Yahoo, and eventually we lost over 6000 subscribers because of it.

      Thanks for helping.

      TC & Darcy

      Reply
  2. Joyce

    i am still getting InfoAve Premium and InfoAve Daily in my Yahoo email with no problems. However, i will alert anyone I come across that subscribe, about this.

    Reply
  3. Rhonda Stephen

    This is the least we can do for you. You have been there for us for so many years. It’s like we are family.
    Is there anything else we can do other than spread the word?
    Good luck and God Bless you both.

    Reply
  4. Dawn Campbell

    Condensed version posted to Facebook here:
    https://www.facebook.com/dawn.campbell1
    I have been a client for years and years and you are the best on the internet and I don’t want to see you guys in trouble. If I was a millionaire you would be set forever! Good luck.

    Reply
  5. Sue Young

    I am so happy I can do this for you two wonderful people With all the help and advice you have gave to me so freely this is the least I can do for you both. So here is the link to my Fb page if you want to see what I wrote about you

    https://www.facebook.com/

    Thank you so very much for you do for all your subscribers

    Hugs to you both
    Sue

    Reply
  6. Connie

    I just posted the first link on Facebook and a friend wants to know where you get your money if the newsletters are free. I know that you have the computer care as I subscribe to it but I’m not sure about what else you sell.

    Reply
    1. infoave Post author

      Hi Connie,

      We currently “sell” two products – both of which we use on our own computers and both of which are used by our families and closest friends.

      We offer Emsisoft – the best antivirus and anti-malware available anywhere. Not only does Emsisoft always rank near the top in independent testing results, they give our mutual customers superior personal support. We are an authorized reseller for Emsisoft and we offer both new licenses and renewals at a discount.

      We also sell Reg Organizer. It’s a Swiss Army Knife of handy Windows utilities all in one program. We use Reg Organizer on our personal and business PCs. We are authorized resellers for Reg Organizer as well. We offer substantial discount off retail prices for both new purchases and renewals.

      The main sources of income for our small company come from

      1. Cloudeight Direct Computer Care & Repair Services. With Cloudeight Direct we connect with customer’s computers remotely and do the repairs while the customer watches in the comfort of their own home. Since Darcy & I do ALL the repair work personally, we know our customers are getting the the best, most personal service available anywhere. Our prices are always the lowest – sometimes less than 1/3 of what other remote repair services charge.

      2. Voluntary donations from our loyal members and subscribers.

      3. Sales of Emsisoft, Emsisoft renewals, and Reg Organizer.

      4. We make a small amount from Google ads on our web sites (but never in our newsletters).

      We are just a small two-person company. We certainly don’t have a lot of money. Sometimes we struggle to get by. But one thing we’ve never done and never will do, is sell out those who trust us. We would never recommend a product or service we would not recommend to our families and that we would not use on our own computers.

      Back in the days when our Cloudeight Stationery site was one of the biggest sites on the internet, we were often approached by malware, spyware and PUPs developers who offered us $1.00 per download if we would bundle their malware with our stationery downloads. At that time we were averaging 10,000 to 20,000 downloads a day. We turned down tens of thousands of dollars because we refused to violate the trust of those who believed in us. We could have become very wealthy. But trust can’t be bought – it must be earned.

      Today, we often stuggle financially, and sometimes we have a hard time making ends meet. But we would never ever sell or recommend anything we would not use ourselves. We would never have nor would we ever, sell out our subscribers, members or site visitors.

      So, that’s a little history of Cloudeight for you.

      Thanks so much for helping us, Connie.

      Best wishes,

      TC

      Reply
  7. David Norcott

    We have been ‘together’ for years now, and mean far more to me than ‘just another business’ — your help and any associated costs when necessary are second to none !!!!! I have sent a letter out to my Contacts, urging them to give you a try; sure that they be ‘regulars’ , and be hooked on your information once they do !!
    ALL THE BEST EB & TC — Dave.

    Reply
  8. Jeanne Rodel

    I wondered why i was not getting my Cloud eight emails. Now My son suggested I discontinue email because of the breech. I went to the Cloud eight web site to see if it was true. i have changed to a different email. Thank you for the info.
    Jeanne

    Reply
  9. Darlene M. Anderson

    If you like computer information–especially if you are not a techie–Cloud Eight is a company that you would really like. It is a man and wife, tiny company, who have spent their lives helping primarily older computer users. They originally designed pretty computer stationery, but when Windows changed the way they worked their email services the stationery was no longer as successful. They now also put out two newsletters that are free. In them, they advertise a lot of good freeware as well as a few programs that they test out completely and then promote. They receive a commission on sales of those programs. They don’t make a fortune, so for them to lose 6,000 subscribers is a major problem. I’ve been with them for almost 20 years and I have learned a LOT. If you have any interest, or have any friends who might have interest please pass on the links found in this letter from Darcy and T.C. By the way, T.C. writes beautifully and has an essay every week that is a joy to read. For those of you who have said kind things about my writing, you will LOVE T.C. He writes circles around me. Please take a second to read this article and click on the links. You won’t be sorry.

    Reply
  10. Darlene M. Anderson

    I was in the process of sending you what I had posted in FB but when I was trying to correct a type in the box about my website, it SENT. I didn’t get to put in my comment above what went on FB. Under this message with the link you provided here, I sent two brief messages with the individual links.

    If you don’t have time to read the whole article, here are the links to the two newsletters. The InfoAve is much bigger and comes once a week. This is the link for that one.

    This is the link for the daily newsletter. It always has a highlight about something he has covered in the big newsletter that you may not have taken time to read. You can click on it and go to the home page for complete coverage.

    Reply
  11. Diane Kupchak

    I put a link on my Facebook page too. You have been helping me for over 10 years; I read the newsletter every Friday. I have purchased programs and several times you have helped via Direct Care. You installed Thunderbird and Windows 10. I cannot imagine a computer world without you both!!!!!

    Reply
    1. infoave Post author

      Diane, thanks so much. We both appreciate your friendship and support. Thanks for putting us on your Facebook page

      Reply

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