HTML-only e-mail idiocy

E-mail messages should be in plain text, or at least provide a plain-text part which contains the same information as the HTML part. This blog documents flagrant violations of RFC 1521 and other Internet standards by senders who ought to know better.

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FedEx doesn't understand how to send e-mail.

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PayPal still doesn't understand how to send e-mail.

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Mömax doesn't understand how to send e-mail.

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Criticker doesn't understand how to send e-mail.

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Makeoutclub doesn't understand how to send e-mail.

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Condor doesn't understand how to send e-mail.

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Xing doesn't understand how to send e-mail.

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Thomas Cook doesn't understand how to send e-mail.

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Network Solutions doesn't understand how to send e-mail.

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Google Scholar doesn't understand how to send e-mail.

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Zinio doesn't understand how to send e-mail.

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President's Choice Financial doesn't understand how to send e-mail.

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CIBC doesn't understand how to send e-mail.

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It looks like British Airways is getting somewhat better at sending e-mail!  (Probably no thanks to this blog, but hey, let's not rule anything out…)  You will recall from my previous post that the plain-text part of British Airways Executive Club e-mails used to consist of nothing but a string of incomprehensible letters and numbers.  But lo and behold, today's Executive Club mailing contains more!  The strange string of symbols is still there, but above it there's a short message containing the URL of a Web version of the mail-out.

This is a marked improvement over the previous practice, though still not ideal.  What's the point of offering to send statements by e-mail if they don't put the statement in the e-mail itself?

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PayPal doesn't understand how to send e-mail.  (And though this e-mail really is from PayPal, the "From" address is rather suspiciously not one from paypal.com, and the "To" header gives the customer's name as "- -".  Customers are likely to think this message is a phishing scam.)

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Sonatype doesn't understand how to send e-mail.

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OkCupid doesn't understand how to send e-mail.