I don't see anything wrong with that email. You can't blame someone from maximizing their income in this tough economy and the email was at least polite and respectful.
If you had encountered a true 'turd' you wouldn't have received an email from them at all & instead they'd have a bot responding to every one of your blog posts with a thinly veiled sales pitch for their products.
I hate unsolicited advertising in my email as much as the next guy, but in this situation I think they took the high road.
-Innuendo
I don't mind the spam (so much). I mind their business model. A "sponsored blog post" is a pack of bs thrown on unsuspecting readers.(*) If their business model is working - let's imagine that it is - that implies there are who knows how many "sponsored posts" out there, everywhere. This is not about unsolicited advertising. This is about advertising that tries to sneak in into your head without you seeing it for what it is. Exactly the kind of thing that would get anyone kicked out of DC before they could click Submit.
(*) I know, I know... And Eóin is right too. But there have to be places like here where you can leave your cynicism at the door, otherwise why bother? These people are stomping out what soul and integrity is left out there.
No, this does not surprise me, nor was I born this morning. I still hate it, because it kills the single most important thing we have as people: the ability to trust another one of us. And I know what I'm talking about - in all studies, my country consistently ranks near the very bottom in "social trust" or "interpersonal trust" indicators.
We don't trust our neighbors, our shopkeepers, our police, our doctors, our local and central governments, our bureaucrats (and they've all done plenty to deserve it). We don't trust our laws, and the only thing we barely (barely!) trust is the institutions of the European Union, because we don't believe they are quite as corrupt as we think ours are.
The point is, living in a place like this can be really distressing and sad. And fatal if your life or well-being ever happens to depend on a stranger throwing you this one little lifeline, like maybe give you a ride or call for an ambulance. This total absence of trust is the longest lasting, most destructive legacy of (what passed for) communism, and all the earlier turbulence of history.
When I read about how the people of Iceland got together, kicked out their government, kicked out the banksters and sat down and wrote their own new constitution from scratch, I thin of them as angels from a fairy tale. That takes trust in the folks around you.
Innuendo: do you trust the reviews you read on DC? If you do, does that have any value to you? I do, and it does. The people who take it away from me by deception deserve worse then calling them a bad name.
/rant!