Spam, ISPs, MAPS And Lawsuits

droleary writes: "Something of an update to this Slashdot article, a Yahoo News story reports that a number of large ISPs are caving in to a massive lawsuit brought by Harris Interactive regarding the delivery of their "online polls" (aka, spam, according to MAPS). I find it disturbing that large ISPs are so willing to let external agencies control what runs through their systems."

Comments

Spam isn't the only form of shameful advertisement

[AFCArchvile]

"I find it disturbing that large ISPs are so willing to let external agencies control what runs through their systems."

Case in point, the "free" internet access programs. Netzero, in truth, uses a Java interface which forces the user to view a window slightly larger than a banner ad (which displays banner ads 24/7, fetching a new one each second). This window cannot be closed during connection. Essentially, this taints Netzero's claim of "free internet"; it should be "Free with a 7 second bandwidth cutoff every minute." The only free internet service that I would recommend was Worldspy. It used a Java client to interface with Dial-Up Networking, but could be easily configured to dial directly from a Dial-Up Networking window (and perhaps even with KPPP - no sloth-like Java shell!). This was good until Juno bought Worldspy.

What does this have to do with the story? (Moderators, pay attention.) These ISPs are allowing ad agencies to steal bandwidth from unsuspecting users who hate AOL, but don't want to pay for an analog modem connection. This is probably the first case of legalized e-extortion: letting the ads prevail. Doubleclick.net is one of the more prevalent banner-ad agencies.

There is a way you can shut out these banner ad sites for good! How? By tricking your web browser into mapping the DNS entries to localhost! To do this, find the "hosts" file (stuck in \windows\system or \winnt\system32; I don't know where for Linux). Simply place entries in like this:

127.0.0.1 ad.doubleclick.net 127.0.0.1 m.doubleclick.net 127.0.0.1 ad-adex3.flycast.com 127.0.0.1 ads20.focalink.com (use the same spacing as existing entries [there should be one already that says "localhost"])

When you go to pages which acquire banner ads from these sites, they will be replaced by either a "X" icon or a similar "Not Found" message (exactly the size of the banner ad!). This is a true sanity-saver and time-saver, even better than those cookie catcher programs.

From the Harris press release

[jesterzog]

The original (and understandably biased) Harris Interactive press release which can be found at http://www.harrisinteractive.com/news/index.asp?Ne wsID=127&HI_election=HarrisInterac tive says:

The current Harris Interactive situation is a perfect example of why the government, and not self-appointed private groups, must create the rules which govern Internet communications. Essentially, Mail Abuse Prevention System, LLC (MAPS), and other like groups, are permitted, without any due process of law or even a fair process, to restrict companies' rights to conduct legitimate business over the Internet. These restrictions are based on complaints that may be economically motivated by our competitors.

Personally I think it's a perfect example of why the government should not create rules which govern Internet communications.

If it did we'd have technicalities causing the government to force us to pay for and eat spam day and night because some idiot corporation wants us to read it. MAPS on the other hand is a good example of the general population deciding whether they want to respect a certain organisation's judgement or not.

MAPS definitely has it's down side. If all the companies known to not use double opt-in were listed, nobody would use it. But that's also the strongest thing about it. If MAPS gets indiscriminite and lazy about listing organisations as spammers, nobody would use it.

===

The correct URL...

[TrumpetPower!]

...is http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/zd/20000908/tc/harris _wins_more_battles_against_maps_1. html. 'Taint no space there.

b&

Interesting Quote

[Hrunting]

But "23 of the top 25 Web sites don't use the double opt-in," Black said. "By MAPS standards, 23 of the 25 Web sites should be blocked."

In my opinion, yeah 23 of the top 25 web sites should be blocked from sending me e-mail. I'm sick of automatically getting a bunch of crap from web sites that I don't even frequent.

But if you look at the quote, he's not saying that at all. He's talking about blocking web sites, which of course, MAPS isn't about at all. I'm glad all those big corporations are cowering to such genius.

Harris Poll is sort of spamish...

[stefanlasiewski]

I signed up for the Harris Poll long ago. Did a dozen Polls, got bored, and decided to get off their list. Unfortunately, it wasn't that easy...

To unsubscribe seems pretty simple, click on a link, enter your email address on some web page, hit "ok". Too bad it doesn't work right... it took me 6 or seven tries over a period of 6 months to get off their damn mailing list. I tried contacting humans over at harrispollonline.com, but never received a single response.

In the end, I was only partially successful.
I don't get any more invites to participate in Harris Polls, but I still get their damn Harris Poll Newsletter. I don't want to deal with this anymore, so I just filter all their stuff now.

Moral of this story: Harris Poll may not be Spam, but the mailing list is poorly run. Poorly run mailinglists deserve to get blocked until they fix the problem. If they don't suffer the consequences of getting blocked, then they will never fix the problem. Tough shit for them.

Confusion and misunderstandings

[arafel]

There seems to be quite a lot of confusion about what the RBL actually is and does, so maybe it should be cleared up. Apologies for the length of this - it just kind of grew.

The Realtime Blackhole List is simply a list of IPs that have sent spam (or host spamware sites), and whose owners have refused to do anything about it. MAPS isn't "trigger happy" - in fact, many spam fighters wish they were faster, even if we can see why they aren't. :-) To actually be placed on the RBL, an entity has to really work at it, and being removed is a lot easier than going on. There are other lists that MAPS run, but none of them are indiscriminate in what they block. Relay Spam Stopper, for instance, only lists a relay *after* it's been used (not as useless as it sounds :).

MAPS itself doesn't block anything. ISPs that subscribe to one or more of the various lists will generally just refuse connections from IPs listed in the RBL. There's no "erasing" of email going on - the sender gets a message saying that it was refused, so they can deal with it. If they don't, their ISPs mail server is seriously broken.

If you don't like the idea of an ISP filtering email for you, even based on the fact that anything in the RBL is almost certain to be junk mail, then talk to your ISP and see if they'll make an exception for you. Trying to get MAPS closed down is a stupid reaction.

Harris' suit is also a stupid reaction. They may or may not succeed in bullying companies to override the RBL on their servers, but the longer this goes on, the more filters (private and otherwise) they're being placed in. They're already in mine, for example, and they're not coming out. Ever. I'm a lot less forgiving than the RBL.

Hope this reduces the mess, anyway, so we get a somewhat more intelligent collection of articles than we did last time this came up. :-)

Additional

[congiman]

Actually maps has a press release they sent out yesterday:

http://mail-abuse.org/pressreleases/2000-09-08.h tml

Good chunks:
. "They insist on using dirty email lists, which contain the email addresses of people who do not want to receive their email, and who did not themselves sign up to receive email from Harris".

Ahh - so they are buying internet lists and sending them to people. Now thats not even single opt-in. Ok so thats a BIG problem. I dont want my e-mail address reaped just because I posted to slashdot once.

Another good snippet:
We are absolutely fine with Hotmail and AOL deciding to let Harris email enter their system" continued Thompson. "In fact this is how our system was designed to work, and it confirms our position in this lawsuit! MAPS does not dictate policy to anybody - we simply publish a list of Internet addresses known to originate or enable spam - what the individual Internet service providers ("ISPs")choose do with that information is up to them. They can choose to block email from those addresses, or, as AOL and Hotmail have done, they can choose to accept it. Perhaps now that Harris sees that MAPS does not control whether their email is accepted or rejected by the ISPs, they will realize that suing us makes very little sense indeed. We are entitled to publish our opinion, and in fact are guaranteed a right to do so by the First Amendment."

-- Thats right, *I* choose what I want to accept on my mail system, and I trust maps to be an introducer of what I want (or do not want) to receive. And yes I can choose to accept mail from RBL'd sites, but I would not want someone to force me to accept their mail. That smacks too much of losing my rights.

If I dont want to listen to what someone has to say, why should I be forced to? If i dont want someone to send me files that fill up *my* disk, take cpu resources, why should I have to?

I think maps is great in what they do, and I hope they win,

Harris already lost their request of a Temporary restraining order agains maps, and I hope its the first of a long line of losses against them. Link:
http://mail-abuse.org/pressreleases/2000-08-08.h tml

You can show your support for maps by
mailing comments@mail-abuse.org (see http://www.mail-abuse.org) for info.

I think maps is doing a GREAT service, and I hope Paul and Nick, and the others keep fighting and dont give in.

-- C