(Updated)
Panda Software offers “protection against viruses, spyware, hackers, spam and other Internet threats“.
I find it ironic to receive on average two spam emails per day from the spam-protection company (it’s just the average, on 5/17 I received 5!). Or is it some twisted logic that says eventually I surrender and buy their product, then, and only then I can stop their spam? C’mon guys, I am used to receiving spam from others, but not at this rate… Let’s suppose I am in the market for antivirus software, and let’s suppose yours the best, I would still not buy it after the way you treated me!.
What kind of idiot does it take to think that making customers hate them will drive them to buy their products?
Update (5/23): Apparently I am not the only one. There is a whole thread on Panda Spam at the PC Pitstop:
“I responded to their Unsubscribe address, but it didn’t help at all. I
went to Panda’s site and wrote to a few of their support and sales
email addresses, explaining the situation and asking to be removed from
all of their marketing lists. No response, and the emails keep on
coming.
I set up my spam filters to stop them, but they still
keep coming almost daily! (Using K-9 with Pocomail) How do they do
that? I guess that they are, after all, experts in the spam department
and would know how to circumvent such filters. But why would they?”
Update (5/23): After all the bad experience a pleasant surprise: Carolina, PR Manager at Panda emailed me in perhaps less than an hour, apologized and promised to fix it. Kudos for paying attention and being so prompt. Of course, ideally, it would not take PR’s intervention to fix this … and again, what happens to all the other people complaining on the PC Pitstop? Carolina, again, thanks for helping me, but the real nice solution would be to revise your spam and opt-out policy. If you do, I’ll write about it. 
Update (5/25): Well, whatever Carolina did, had no effect, I am still receiving Panda Spam. To her credit, she responded to my email in less than a minute: “I’ll contact the marketing again. I will walk over there
myself.” Thanks, Carolina. Just so you know, I took out a little insurance: set up a filter that forwards all Panda-mail to you, deleting the original copy. Don’t worry, you won’t get a lot of spam – if you can stop it, that is. 
Update (6/2): Panda is unstoppable. It no longer bothers me, since I have it auto-forwarded to Carolina. She is clearly motivated to stop it, but apparenly can’t – I can still see the forwarded copies in my trash folder. Perhaps she gave up, too, and created an auto-delete filter. 
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Tags: Panda, Pandasoftware, spam, antispam, antivirus, zoliblog
This is simply bad business.
Kind of like if Symantec were to release a virus simply to convince their potential customers that they need to buy their product.
It’s almost a subtle form of extortion.
For what it’s worth, and sorry to post a ‘me too’ but, I’ve sent 15 emails to Panda complaining about their ‘information’ messages. They are in a foreign language, they are incessant, overly long, and not wanted. Apparently they can’t stop, and are incapable of replying.
It’s almost a year since your original post, and I find myself in the same boat! I’ve received the “You’ve been successfully unsubscribed” emails from Panda twice, but yet I still get their solicitations. I’ve contacted Customer Service three times, and yet I’ve received no response, even though I cc:d the FTC on one email and informed Panda that if I didn’t get my name removed/a response, I’d be filing a formal written complaint with the FTC. Well, guess what- I just had to file a formal written complaint with the FTC. This shouldn’t be that hard. They appear like a legit company, yet their tactics on Spam are not. And yes, the irony is not lost on me.
Some kind of filter to automatically send all spam back to the very same address it came from should do the trick. Remember, this is Panda we’re talking about, so the apparent senders are most likely legitimate.
I’ve done something quite similar, just read the 5/25 update above 🙂
Hey, I know you’re not in love with Wikipedia, but your disallowing links to your site from them means that your site can no longer be cited in the Criticism section of their Panda Software article. Just letting you know, and keep up the good fight.
I do like Wikipedia, but what do you mean by disallowing links? I’m not aware of anything, unless it’s a glitch in spam protection.
Well, there is a glitch, and I am not blocking it. Wikipedia must have gotten on Blogware’s blacklist. It happened once, and they fixed it fast, so I just submitted a request to fix it again.
Thanks for noticing it.
For anyone else happening across this article… the FTC requests you forward your spam to SPAM@UCE.GOV — I’ve changed my filter to automatically forward everything from Panda to that address.
They really need some attention directed on them.
Hey ww found this post from the Wikipedia article, just checking in to see if you still have the Spam issue. Please forward your spam message with all headers to evalsupport@us.pandasecurity.com. We can look into it for you.
I got tired of getting the weekly virus alerts and have tried to unsubscribe for MONTHS. I tried the unsubscribe link many times, but still receive the alert every week. I’ve started reporting it as spam using spamcop.net