{"id":221415,"date":"2026-05-04T04:16:53","date_gmt":"2026-05-04T04:16:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/promotional-notifications-have-become-pure-spam-and-often-we-cant-disable-them-without-losing-important-information\/"},"modified":"2026-05-04T04:16:55","modified_gmt":"2026-05-04T04:16:55","slug":"promotional-notifications-have-become-pure-spam-and-often-we-cant-disable-them-without-losing-important-information","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/promotional-notifications-have-become-pure-spam-and-often-we-cant-disable-them-without-losing-important-information\/","title":{"rendered":"Promotional Notifications Have Become Pure Spam, and Often We Can’t Disable Them Without Losing Important Information"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

The Rise of Notification Spam<\/h2>\n

In August 2023, I reached out to Wallapop on X, requesting they cease sending absurd notifications like, “Hello! How are you today? Have you slept like a baby?”<\/em> This serves as a glaring example of an ever-growing issue: the abuse of notifications<\/strong> to the point where they resemble pure spam<\/em>. This trend has significantly worsened over the past three years within the app industry.<\/p>\n

The Symptoms of Notification Fatigue<\/h3>\n

Nowadays, my bank alerts me about home insurance promotions before critical events occur, while services like Uber Eats bombard me with 30% discounts on burgers I haven’t even considered ordering. Similarly, Spotify continues to recommend podcasts outside my interests. This phenomenon, termed notification fatigue, seems to have a straightforward solution: simply turn off notifications.<\/p>\n

The Dilemma of Disabling Notifications<\/h3>\n

However, here lies the challenge: I can’t mute my bank’s promotional messages without also risking the omission of alerts for potentially fraudulent charges<\/strong>. Likewise, I can’t silence the dining service’s offers without potentially missing a delivery update. Companies intentionally merge transactional and promotional notifications, making it difficult to separate them without delving deep into the settings. Thus, users face a choice between two undesirable options: endure the spam or miss out on essential notifications.<\/p>\n

The Economics of Notification Abuse<\/h3>\n

This issue did not arise with SMS notifications, mainly because sending text messages incurs a cost. This cost compelled senders to evaluate whether mass messages were worthwhile. However, with push notifications, the situation is different: pushing notifications is free<\/strong>. The expense of sending you a hundred notifications is the same as sending one, giving companies an incentive to saturate their users with irrelevant alerts, often dismissing user inconvenience.<\/p>\n

Unregulated Notification Policies<\/h2>\n

Since 2020, Apple has expressly prohibited the sending of promotional notifications without opt-in<\/em> consent, and Google has implemented similar guidelines. However, brands have found loopholes, disguising advertising as transactional messages (e.g., “your order is ready… and check out this 2-for-1 offer”<\/em>) or simply sending irrelevant nonsense. The regulatory landscape appears much like public transport\u2014a world filled with signs requesting silence and reserved seats, yet lacking enforcement. Such regulations merely serve to create an illusion of order.<\/p>\n

Normalizing Advertising in Personal Spaces<\/h3>\n

Despite these regulations, we have grown accustomed to our banks sending advertising messages through the most personal device we own\u2014the mobile phone. This shift occurs at no cost to the banks and significant inconvenience to us. We continue the arduous task of disabling notifications app by app, hoping to segment them by type, until the day arrives when we miss an important alert. That missed notification is the data point that no one tracks in conversion metrics.<\/p>\n

The Bigger Picture<\/h2>\n

As we navigate through the digital landscape filled with unwanted notifications, it becomes even more crucial to find a balance. How can we protect ourselves from spam while remaining informed about what genuinely matters? The current notification landscape demands comprehensive changes from app developers, regulators, and most importantly, us as users.<\/p>\n

Featured image | Xataka<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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General News – 2<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Rise of Notification Spam In August 2023, I reached out to Wallapop on X, requesting they cease sending absurd notifications like, “Hello! How are you today? Have you slept like a baby?” This serves as a glaring example of an ever-growing issue: the abuse of notifications to the point where they resemble pure spam. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":221416,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36399],"tags":[37181,458,3458,4661,12917,10287,4215,38050],"class_list":["post-221415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-disable","tag-important","tag-information","tag-losing","tag-notifications","tag-promotional","tag-pure","tag-spam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221415"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":221417,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221415\/revisions\/221417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/221416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teknomers.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}