dsandler.org/wp

I just got the most unusual piece of spam from palmOne about my essay, “requiem for having been”, about the acquisition of Be, Inc. by Palm, Inc.

Here’s the HTML version of the email, (almost) in its entirety (I omitted the phone number and email address at the end):

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Website Correction Request from palmOne

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hello Webmaster,

I’m writing to request some updates on your website
http://www.dsandler.org/gruntle/been.php .
As you may know, palmOne, not Palm, is now the name
of the company that manufactures handhelds, and palmOne
has acquired Handspring (the originator of Treo smartphones).

With these changes, there have been URL changes –
http://www.palmone.com/us/ is now the home page for palmOne,
http://www.handspring.com/ is now
http://www.palmone.com/us/products/smartphones/, and the
palmOne store is now at http://store.palmone.com/

There are links on your site that point
to old URLs. I’d like to request that you search and
replace the code of your entire site to make the following
corrections:
* URLs that started with http://www.palm.com/ now start
with http://www.palmone.com/us/
* URLs that started with http://www.handspring.com/ now

start with http://www.palmone.com/us/products/smartphones/
* URLs that started with http://store.palm.com/ now start
with http://store.palmone.com/

In addition, I suggest you no longer use the Handspring
brand name – this brand has been replaced by Treo smartphones.
You may want to search and replace in your current pages to
make this change.

Thanks so much for your assistance in this matter.
Do let me know if I can answer any questions.

Cooper Marcus

———————————————-
palmOne

Of course, I mention “Palm” three times in my essay, and link to it once. Of course, in November 2001, that was the name of the company! The email above was clearly generated by a spider, which had no way of knowing that this was, in its way, a historical document, but the larger question remains: What webpages could they have plausibly discovered with such a spider for which this kind of URL and trademark revisionism would be called for? What is this email expected to achieve?

Update 7/27: I just got the same piece of spam again,
referencing the same URL, but sent to a different e-mail address. Seriously,
what is the deal here?

Update 7/28: Another day, another email.