Like you, I use the post auction auto e-mail feature. It is a very convenient & useful feature to the AS service. I've seen other posts similar to yours, expressing dissatisfaction with the auto e-mail because of the AS promoting paragraph. If fact, some snipers dislike the canned e-mail so much, they elect NOT to use the feature.
The really goofy thing about the whole situation is that it is ONLY one offending paragraph (maybe a few lines) that turns some people off!! It would be nice if the AS people would re-write this small section that would still be able to promote the AS service, but be plain vanilla & benign enough to ruffle fewer feathers of users!
For instance, I think few snipers would object to something on the order of:
"This winning bid was placed in behalf of the bidder by AuctionSniper. If you are curious to learn more about this service and how it may help you win more auctions, go to {website address keyed with AS user's e-mail address as referral}".
I think more people would use this feature if the AS sell would be toned down a bit, and THAT would get AS's name out there more!
If the AS programmers would REALLY like to do some extra work,
they could modify the e-mail setup page so that the user could SELECT among several pre-written AS-promoting paragraphs to be included in the e-mail. It is doubtful they would allow the AS-promoting paragraph to be deletely entirely as theoretically there would be no direct benefit or return to AS in that case.Maybe Sara will add this request to the list of program change requests!
Snipe on!
Jabbergah
