It's built into Gmail, Gloria. There are Gmail settings that can be tweaked for more (or less) stringent spam filters.
Most of the marketing mail I get never makes it into the house. I have to walk by the recycling bin on the way and in it goes. I have to watch though when I have a new MasterCard coming because it's in an unmarked envelope.
Consider yourselves very, very lucky. Your names somehow never made it onto their list for insurance offers of all kinds, funeral plans, miracle drug/herb offers, etc, etc. As soon as I joined, my mailbox was FLOODED with more junk than I could believe. I knew exactly who was behind that, and I took steps to end the deluge.
This is my first year really experiencing the calls, the mail, even emails about insurance alternatives to traditional medicare. I don't answer my phone unless I recognize who is calling so I can't say anything about those callers and email is mainly from AARP but mail on the other hand is almost every day sometimes even from the same provider, it's ridiculous. Once should be enough.
I'm amazed at how often some of you seem to get cold phone calls. Over here they have been forbidden for some time. I used to get them while I was still working and obviously some companies seemed to take an interest in me as a prospect. As a retiree no one seems to be interested in me any more. What has helped a great deal, though, is that I had my old landline phone number deleted from the directory back in the 90s. Privacy policy has been tightened everywhere since then. In addition, when I moved house I got a completely new landline number and have been very careful not to give it to any company and if I had to, I always ticked off the box making it illegal for the company to use it, and what's more, to sell it. So since I moved here five years ago, I have had one phone call from a company which I ended as soon as I realised it was a cold call. I don't get any marketing mail either and doorstep cold calling is illegal anyway.
I pick and choose the emails that I read, rejecting more than 99% of them, I don't answer my phone unless it's someone I know, and most of my snail mail is shredded unopened, so I don't mind. I do wish I didn't receive so many marketing calls on my phone though, because it would be nice to be able to answer my phone again. Several years ago, I made a contribution to a right-to-life group, using my middle initial, which I rarely use. Within months, I was getting junk mail from dozens of non-profits, addressed to me using my middle initial, so they took my contribution and added to it by selling my name and address to junkmailers.
On the vaccinations, I'm pretty sure that's what they have planned. I am certain that this was one of several agendas being fulfilled through the COVID-19 farce. Then, of course, it won't stop with COVID-19. Before long, if they have their way, they - not you - will decide which vaccinations you receive, whether or not you take the medications they determine you need, and so on. But now, we've moved into a vaccination thread and this is about marketing to seniors. I wouldn't mind the Medicare ads that come around once a year if they would give more information so that I wouldn't have to take the initiative to decide whether I need to change my policy. Instead, some of them try to make their ads sound like official notices from Medicare, or as something that I actually need to respond to. It doesn't take long to figure out that this is not the case but I am sure that it works for them or they wouldn't be doing it.
And........you have every right to be confused! You’re an American Senior Citizen and being confused is guaranteed by the uh.....well, somewhere. Actually, yeah the thread did get kinda kinked up but seniors are definitely going to be targeted one way or the other when the inoculations come out. I really do not know if it will come to any great amount of aggravation, but there are those who believe that since we’re already on the high side of middle age so therefore might be shoved off to the side if indeed you want said shot. Or the opposite could occur with the ads coming out like crazy after the first shot since it is being said that the 2nd one won’t be free. Heads or tails? Looking back, I can’t figure out how I could be answering Ken regarding the Covid scam but somehow quoted his reply on the aggressive thing. Fade in the theme music to the twilight zone. I’ll ask Yvonne if it can be fixed.
You gotta consider that we are the first generation who has really been bombarded with directed-ads ever since we were kids. Television was the primary carrier. And since our age group outnumbers all others, the bulk of the marketing throughout our lives has been directed at us. We have always been (and still are) the largest demographic, with disproportionate resources. The only "old person" ad I recall seeing as a kid was for Geritol, most likely on The Ed Sullivan Show or on Lawrence Welk. I often wonder what young kids these days think when they are inundated with ads for all of these meds for all these maladies. Do children really need to know what "E.D." is??? Regarding marketing to old people: I guess we all hate to see people taken advantage of...especially children and old people. I think our anger is in direct proportion to our belief that those of our age are more vulnerable than everyone else.