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DMA to Control Spam by DMA Members
SiliconLawyer writes: "The Direct Marketing Association, the major U.S. tradegroup for companies using direct marketing techniques, will reportedly issue guidelines for how its members may and may not use e-mail as a marketing tool. Hopefully, this will influence other marketers toward more responsible use of e-mail. Details are on CNET here."
anything named The Direct Marketing Association should be sent directly to /dev/null
HURD - Hurd's Under Research & Development
Won't this be a little like the wolf looking after the chickens?
"We are still going to spam, but we wil spam nicely."
Spam is Spam is Spam!
This sort of seems like having a known group of criminals regulating crime. "OK, now guys, no stealing anymore ok...?"
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Random, useless fact: I type in startx entirely with my left hand.
"Despite all the problems you've caused in the past, I'll go ahead and let you guard the henhouse."
Yeah, Riiiiiiiight.
EFGearman
--
Atomic batteries to power! Turbines to speed!
This has to be a hoax. Next thing I know you'll be posting a story about how Microsoft is going to "specialize in computer security".
Har de har har.
When you click the "Remove me from your list" link, it'll point to a real page?
Man, if I was a lawyer, I'd be rich!
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Bloody Vikings!
Still #1 -- Lonely Gay Geek
Most of the spam you get isn't from the established businesses that would be members of the DMA. It's mostly from trailer trash. So this isn't really a big deal.
- Have a picture
Maybe I'm in the distinct minority, but most of my SPAM doesn't come from any real reputable marketing firm. Email sent from a company that uses forged headers so I don't know who they are doesn't seem very likely to be an upstanding member of the Direct Marketing Association. It's like saying "Look, we've outlawed guns, now criminals won't shoot people"... but that's a whole other can of worms.
Ad in classifieds: Pandora's Box (no box) $5
If you'd like more information, please send an e-mail to gullible@dma.org.
We promise this information will be kept private amongst are bajillion members and will not be shared with anyone else that doesn't politly ask.
Chaos, Mayhem, and Destruction: Not
The fox has been named new guard of the hen house.
I have worked for 2 companies that were DMA members and they were quite careful about sending mail, etc. already. This will have no effect on spammers whatsoever, they have a tendency to not pay thousands of dollars in dues to trade organizations.
E for effort though.
The DMA is all about self-interest, and their particular interest is enabling their members to put as much advertising in front of your nose as possible The only thing they're trying to accomplish here is to look responsive, so that the threat of useful legislation in the area will be less.
Oh, and as for those people foolish enough to sign up for their "voluntary" no-call lists for telemarketers, that's about equivalent to replying to spam; it only confirms that your phone number is legitimate.
Hmm...Direct Marketing Association...DMA. What exactly do they represent? Spammers, who uniformly sell crap. Thus, they could be the Direct Marketing (of) Crap Associat - thereby becoming the DMCA!
:)
Two evil entities, two similar acronyms. Coincidence? I think not.
But what does my opinion matter, I just vote here. It's not like I have any money or anything.
You'll realize that the DMA's definition of "spam" is mass-mail from Somebody Else. About the only thing that the DMA policy requires of mainsleaze spammers is that they have "remove" addresses, and nobody trusts them anyway.
Bottom line: this is just another attempt to head off effective legislation by pretending "industry self-regulation."
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I'm encouraged to see the DMA taking steps to establish regulations on the commercial use of email, but I can't see my daily spam levels dropping anytime soon. Many of the companies they represent already have fair and decent policies in place, and the companies that are sending me spam now aren't likely to be stopped by the DMA.
However, the DMA is still doing a good thing. One thing that wasn't mentioned in the article was if the DMA will set up a way to lodge complaints against companies that break the regulations. If there isn't an efficient way to report and deal with policy infractions, the policies are next to useless.
Typically, members of the DMA aren't the problem. It's some fly-by-night outfit that is advertising Herbal Viagra or Hong Kong Vacation Discounts or whatever -- people who not only annoy the people who receive e-mail, but usually do so illegally by using open relays, obscuring their true IP/Email address and so on.
Most DMA members understand that opt-in is the best way to keep a happy customer, though some companies might occasionally make mistakes or require opt-out instead, they're not as bad as the ones who won't be affected by this in the slightest. It may not be 100%, but those companies really aren't the biggest problem. I doubt any of the companies who have harvested my email address on Yahoo! and send pr0n spam (with pictures) are members of the DMA.
I think a death penalty for spammers is a good place to start.
It is obvious what should and should not be sent via email right now. Just as it is obvious who wants and does not want your advertisement emails (solicited vs unsolicited).
The unwritten rules are being ignored now, why would spammers advertising get-rich-quick schemes, porn, and viagra start paying attention now that they are on paper? This is a big waste of time.
Mark
DMA member Amazon.com said such rules are already in practice at the online retailer. Amazon spokeswoman Patty Smith said the company gives customers a myriad of choices related to receiving company communications.
"It sounds like we currently comply with all these rules already," she said.
Generally speaking, I bet most DMA members already have an acceptable spam policy - that, or a policy that needs only minor tweaking to make it policy-compliant.
"Trust me - I know what I'm doing."
- Sledge Hammer
I'm sure the DMA wants to avoid regulations hitting their entire industry, but the facts are that they haven't been effective in the past. Junk faxes - including the infamous ones for more fax toner - are still regularly sent (I get a few every week at home). So, why should anyone reasonably expect anything they do to make a difference now?
The big names, such as Land's End and Eddie Bauer, as quoted in the article, already spam relatively nicely, lest they offend their customers. On the other hand, I'd love to kill those penis-enlargement ads, but there's hardly even a target to shoot at if I wanted to eliminate those. Hell, even with x10 spam, I can ban x10.com. But the ones I want to get rid of are not reputable, and they already avoid accountability. How will this change that?
It's still not clear to me how Direct Memory Access is going to keep my inbox spam-free. I mean, will hard drive manufacturers stop the CPU-less transfer of data from C:\ or /mnt/hda1 if they detect such strings as "You've already won", "Free trial offer", or "Wet sex"?
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
The wheels are already in motion now.....As I heard/read the other day, this is one of the most popular/hot-button issues with voters today...SPAM and Telemarketing...and since elections are just around the corner, look for this to become one of the places where our "courageous" law-makers can distinguish themselves!
Spammers and Telemarketers...."surrender must be immediate and unconditional, prepare to be boarded or destroyed"
Majority of DMA members are honest companies that use email marketing ethically - meaning opt-in messages, honoring unsubscribe requests, etc. This wont do anything to curb those "Increase Your Penis Size!" spams.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
When was the last time you knew of spammers that followed the rules?
Don't Tread on Me
Then what? They SPAM anyway, and don't have DMA dues to pay.
Great idea, nitwits.
In other news, US businesses agreed to stop savagely beating customers who are tardy in payment. Hopefully, this will influence organised crime towards more responsible collection policies.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I recently spent a few weeks trying to persuade my company's marketing bimbo that no, we could not send unsolicited emails to potential customers.
I used the simple expedient of repeating the reasons against spam over and over again until they began to sink in. I even threatened legal action... ie: I told them that people were starting to successfully prosecute spammers for big money.
Even than, I had to answer the question... "Why would this be illegal? I get this kind of thing all the time."
The sad thing was, until I finally convinced the executive VP to bring the hammer down on the project, I was forced to compose graphical HTML-ized spam emails. Thank god they never saw the light of day.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Second, who trusts the removal links?
Third, what prevents me from grabbing the removal database and using as a verified sucker database?
What would work is that DMA provides an email service that allows a member to submit a list and email to send to them, then they will test the address and if it is ok, then send it.
Fight Spammers!
Unsolicited, bulk, (particularly commercial,) email, is and will always be as acceptable as interrupting my dinner to sell me auto insurance.
The difference being, that spam costs me money and costs the sender virtually nothing. Spam is also almost always fraudulent.
But, there's nothing you can really do about it. Some ISPs aren't even in the same country as me and don't give a rat's ass about their users attempts to defraud people.
(Anyone else get "Government Grant E-Books" from Korea on a daily basis in your trash mail folder?)
look on their site. "you can get on our do not call list. up to 16 weeks later you may notice a decrease in phone calls. its five dollars to sign up." is this thing legit? if i were to actually sign up, how do i know i didnt just activiate a "this phone number is valid, spam it" function? (at the isp i work at we always tell our customers not to reply to spam emails for the same type or reason). the five dollars thing is the biggest insult of all. "i'll stop beating your shoulder in every morning for your milk money". why should i believe anything they say? they seem like big giant weasels. ick. ick, ick.
slashdot: where everyone yells sarcastic metaphors to themselves to understand the issue
In case the guys at DMA didn't get the memo, the cat's already out of the bag, pandora's box has already been opened, or .
The majority of the SPAM that's flying around the net isn't even from DMA members. It's all from con and scam artists.
Their move isn't going to change a damn thing in the short or long runs.
-
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Microsoft "promise" not to be anti-competative and monopolistic.
The Ambulance Chasing Attorneys of America promise not to pursue nussiance claims, and to only ever present the true facts.
The Defence Department promises all bombs will hit their intended targets.
Arthur Anderson promise they won't let the additional fees for consultancy cloud their auditing judgement.
And of course
The French Waiters Union promises not to treat all customers like plebs
or maybe
Slashdot promises to practice even handed journalism with a good grasp of reality.
:-)
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Oh, and all their names are "Igor" or something and they refer to themselves in the third person. "Igor like licking stamps." "Igor has good marketing strategy." etc.
Two ideas for handling spammers, inspired by User Friendly:
1. Next time you get a "501 compliant spam" that starts off with something like "This is not unsolicited bulk e-mail. Buy me.", flood their server with messages stating "This is not a denial of service attack."
2. The following poem seems to work well:
I got your mail and wrote you back
just so that you'd have no doubt
that if you spam me ever again
your router shall cease to route
Hurray! I'll be getting 10% less spam! Man, does anyone have a pen I can borrow to cronicle this grand day?
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Today's Top Deals
I can just see those guidelines now:
"You done taken a wrong turn."
-Bill McKinney, in Deliverance
What do you think that means?
"Enough of this wretched, whining monkey life." -- Marcus Aurelius, _Meditations_, Book 9, 37
All that this will do is demonstrate to Congress that we don't need government regulation; that the private sector will take care of itself...
... the trouble is, in this case, the private solution will be pitifull; it is, after all, being proposed by a group which claims that their right to call me during dinner time to sell me a time share vacation EVERY NIGHT FOR ABOUT A MONTH is protected by the first ammendment...
To get on their national do not call list you can visit their site and opt out. To do it by mail is free but to do it online requires a 5$ fee paid by credit card. The catch for the by mail option is that it could take up to 30 days to process. Where is the logic in this? They have to pay some poor data entry people to process every form that comes in yet it costs very little to have me submit my form to a web server. It doesn't make sense. The only thing I can think of is that they don't want any script kiddies deregistering entire electronic phone books.
In Republican America phones tap you.
Now if we can just do something about all this vile paper spam I keep getting...
Even if the DMA are honest, their service can still be used to get good addresses. Consider the following scheme:
- Sign up with e-mps.org for $100.
- Get one of these 25,000,000 email address CDs
- Filter it through e-mps.org
- Diff the filtered results against the unfiltered input.
- Send out spam to the difference list.
This gives you a list of live addresses -- ones which get less spam than average, and hence which are more likely to read your tasty marketing message.Great service guys!
I have been long of the opinion that a good weapon in the war against spam and email abuse would be requirements at some level that emails be digitally signed with a certificate coming from a trusted authority like Verisign.
I believe this is the only way we'll ever be able to get the control mechanisms into place that will start reeling in the ever increasing abuse of the Net... accountability.
Ultimately I would hope that most email servers will begin putting into place policies that reject unsigned mail...
Anyone else agree with me?
mje0w!!!1!
I personally like the way ICQ handles messages and think that this could be applied to email as well. You could have settings that would require people to request authoriztion to send email to you. Everything else gets filtered. This would make spam a two step process for those involved and hence eliminate a vast majority of unwanted mail.
Granted one might be flooded with a deluge of autoriztion requests, but I suppose that could be set to a timing mechanisms whereas if a request was ignored long enough it's just refused.
Please feel free to poke prod or in any way disassemble this "idea"..or more accurately alteration of a successful method of communication.
but the preliminary comments are still way too ambiguous:
"We view spam as sending a commercial e-mail to someone with whom a marketer has not had any prior business relationship and as being sent to someone who has not asked for the e-mail," Cerasale said.
Alright, so if you sign up for a shopping site so that you can browse the contents, does that qualify as having a business relationship with a marketer? I'm pretty sure the businesses think it does. How about email being sent to someone who has not asked for the email? I don't think I've ever asked for an advertisement email, but I know that lots of times you have to scour every inch of the screen to find that little checkbox that says "click here if you don't want to receive promotional emails." The way the article reads, I'm not seeing much improvement here. These companies aren't really the huge spam problem in the first place, it's mostly the diet fad and porno sites, but still I don't think this will reduce their spamming, they'll just come up with new ways to trick you into "having a prior business relationship with a marketer" and "asking for the email."
~ now you know
I mean, my wife gets e-mails telling her to enlarge her penis and I get e-mail telling me to enlarge my breasts....
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
What's the point? A rough guess that 99% of /. readers believe this will do nothing to stop spam. I'm sure reading the article, most of you already knew what the responses would be. So why was the story submitted in the first place?
Who is SiliconLawyer anyway? Well, well, well, wouldn't you know, he's selling something on his website.
-- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
Hopefully, this will influence other marketers toward more responsible use of e-mail
Yea right, with spammers it's always more "yea right" than "hopefully"...
Make sure you forward all of your spam to your local Congressman. That's what I do.
"DMA members will be booted out of the association if they don't follow these rules," said Jerry Cerasale, the DMA's senior vice president of government affairs.
Hmmm. If they put action to those words, then I'll tip my hat off to them. This would be great to see, and restore at least a smidgen of respect for them and their memebers.
Cerasale said the organization's board of directors Saturday approved the new rules, called "Commercial Solicitations Online Guidelines," but that they had yet to notify DMA members.
Heh, how many do you think will jump ship? I'd be surprised if less than 15% did so. Be intersting to see.
-- Note: If you don't agree with me, don't bother replying. I won't read it.
Sounds like a bunch of Bologna to me.
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
So one of the ingenious ways they have of preventing spam is by posting a list of addresses on their website... anyone else see a problem with that? It is obvious to me that they don't really care about the spam problem, they just want to look like they are self-regulating so that congress doesn't interfere with their marketing plans.
Add the following to your sendmail.mc file:
/etc/mail/sendmail.mc > /etc/sendmail.cf
FEATURE(dnsbl,`bl.spamcop.net')dnl
then run
m4
Works for me...doesn't block it all, but it seems to help a great deal.
--It's Pimptastic!--
Here's the strategy I use to eliminate spam. I use this strategy with PocoMail, as its a powerful e-mail prog with complex scripting options...but with thought, it can be adopted to almost any e-mail program...even MS Outlook Express.
I. Things to completely download automatically that almost certainly aren't spam:
1. Anything from a person (e-mail contact) you know and have in your address book.
2. That's it.
II. Things to delete from your server automatically:
1. Any incoming message with a dirty or four-letter word in its subject line. I.e., "fuck", "asshole", "pussy", etc. This includes: (1) Mean words like "fuck", asshole; (2) Pornography words like "pussy", "lesbian", "sex"; (3) Derogatory words like "bitch", "nigger", "spic", "mic", "croat", etc etc. I realize that by the nature of these categories, some of them overlap.
2. Anything that has to do with a money-making scheme, something-for-nothing, a great deal, or free stuff. If something has the "$" character in it, its spam. If something has the word "money" in it, its spam. Furthermore: "rich", "free", "great deal", "deal", "can't afford to miss this", "no risk", "zero risk", etc. I realize that this list is far from comprehensive. Its an ongoing project. As spammers send you more spam, they help you to filter out more such advertisements.
3. Anything from a known spammer; potentially, even, anything from a domain/ISP that doesn't deal with its spam.
4. Anything from microsoft.com (just joking).
Make sure to tell your e-mail prog to download the *Headers* only of these e-mail progs to a folder titled "Junk Mail". Have it then auto-delete the whole thing. Use the downloaded headers as an opportunity to examine new and novel types of spam, so you can better add to your spam-blocking abilities. Remember, the point of blocking spam is to save you bandwidth and time, and downloading headers is trivial in terms of bandwidth/time, and it may allow you to increase your spam-blocking abilities.
III. Things for which to only download the message header/subject line.
Everything not covered under category I and II. Have these messages downloaded to an alternate folder in your e-mail prog, such as "possible spam". Examine the headers...if they appear to be spam, add the subject and sender to your block-list, as well as any words in the subject that are spam-words (dirty, pornography, hateful, or advertisement words). As for messages that don't appear to be spam, you have the option to download them and, if desired, ass the sender to your address book, so that sender can send you mail.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
The problem with this is that the majority of the spam mailers do not belong to the DMA. They don't need to follow the rules under this organization. The ones that do belong to this typically (I didn't say always) have an easy opt out policy. Secondly, the corporate spammers have an entity that could be potentially held liable for spam whereas the individual spammers can move and hide easily.
_______________________________
"I'm not Conceited...I'm just a realist..."
Eventually, some good legislation might get passed that has the backing of DMA/Marketing industry, consumers, and legislators. If DMA can separate themselves from the filth, they are more likely to support such measures, rather than oppose it.
Run a porn site?
Get your FREE DMA MEMBERSHIP NOW!
It does seem a tad like a "pay the DMA $100" to make sure you are spamming live addresses scheme, doesn't it?
Time for me to add a virgin email to their list and see what happens!
i hate pansy republicans
Taking the cynical approach to reading this section in the article, we can expect that it will be acceptable for DMA members to send out the 'permission to spam' spam that so many spamming morons already do.
I'd like to see federal law that provides some disincentive to spam-sending critters. Making spamming illegal makes spammers into official criminals. I just can't see 'industry' self-regulation working very well when most spammers aren't even a part of any legitimate industry.
My poetry site welcomes the unusual.
They only send me stuff I would want to see, I get it no more than maybe 1-2 times a week, and it often includes a $5 off coupon or something.
Most of my bad spam is for absolute random crap or porn, with the same old line on the bottom informing me that the reason I'm being informed about all these Internet Cum Sluts is because I specificly requested to be spamed on their site or one of their partner's sites.
Plus, the latest thing is dating the message 3-4 days back, so you have to scroll back on your inbox to read/erase the spam. It stops the instant deletes by hiding it.
This system is not going to work. Here is the problem; most spam comes from corporations anyways. Think about it; when you want to get a spammer in trouble, what do you do? tell the system administrator who "rules" over the spammer. This is where the vast majority of the spam is from. what this is actually doing is targeting a small portion of spam. It is up to us users to get rid of all the rest of the spam.
A DMA representative said the organization plans to announce the new rules governing commercial e-mail next week. The trade group, one of the largest in the United States with 5,000 members, includes such retailers as Amazon.com, Land's End and Eddie Bauer.
So what? Now Amazon and others will be able to send us email and claim they are within the guidelines set forth by the DMA. These guidelines are nothing more than a mechanism to allow them to legitimize their spamming operations.
I Heart Sorting Networks
Can you explain what this does?
How about not making it illegal to spam but make them buy a "license" to spam, and renew it every year... something like $100/yr even would weed out alot of the real clowns, but it wouldn't be so prohibitive as violating their rights.
OK, it's just an spur of the moment thought, so take it easy on me.
I Heart Sorting Networks
- Until I ask to be added -- don't contact me.
- When I ask -- presume it was not me and e-mail me a confirmation request.
- Only, when such a request comes back affirmative can you add me.
DMA, which wants to spam you, does not need to invent its own guidelines. They are already there -- by people, who know more about the Internet and e-mail, than, perhaps, the entire DMA put together...In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I'll have to agree with you and say that the NY Do Not Call Registry works really well (although it is still legal for charity organizations to call you which is fine by me). There's also a national Do Not Call list in the works and it will face stiff opposition from the DMA.
r ke ting.list.idg/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2002/TECH/ptech/01/24/telema
But that is a sure case of Rule 3 ("Spammers are stupid.") as the list is of people who have taken some action to try to not get the ads. So when they do get them, this group is 1) Less likely to do any business with the spammer and 2) More likely to try to do something about the spamming.
I would suspect that regular news.admin.net-abuse.email posters will be creating 'empty' accounts, not likely to dictionaried, and feeding them to this new list as a test -- and waiting to LART the spam that comes to those addresses. I also suspect the wait won't be long before they get such spam.
The DMA is trying to appear to 'do something' without actually doing anything useful, as usual. For fighting spam the DMA isn't the solution, nor even part of it, by any means. What would be helpful is for mass-adoption of the SPEWS list by 'white hat' ISPs. This could end up dividing the net ("Would you like spamming or non-spamming?") but in a good way -- spammers spamming only to themselves is fine with me. And if a spam-friendly ISP decides it's in their best interests to mend ther ways, even better!
One of the non-managing partners in our client's business decided the same thing. They found someone with an "opt-in" list and decided to spam it. I tried to stop it, convince them that it would fail, etc. They decided to push ahead with something around 80,000 "test" messages.
The CEO of the operating company's e-mail got attacked (had to be protected at the server level), we got multiple Spam Cop messages to the abuse email, etc.
I think that they made $30 in business.
Spamming was stopped.
On the other hand, when they used a real opt-in list (where the company sending the e-mail told them what it was in the subject) we had a much better success rate.
I informed them that we would drop them as a client if they persisted in spamming... it was a nightmare.
That'd be a great campaign slogan for a pro-privacy candidate: "If you are not with the public, you are with the telemarketers!"
Spokesman Easy-Q said:
Does this announcement fill you with any more confidence that the DMA?
In fact, there is a large difference between the DMA and drug dealers - as a general rule, if you tell them you aren't interested in their wares, drug dealers will lose interest and leave you alone.
www.eFax.com are spammers
The topic icon should have a pair of wings.
The DMA has an interesting Consumer FAQ page, which has some good information (although there is some propaganda mixed in, so read it with a grain of salt.)
For those who are suffering from telemarketers, you can call the National Opt-Out Center at 1-888-5OPT-OUT to be put on a no-calling list, or you can contact the Telephone Preference Service
There's not much information on getting off of email lists, but they do suggest the e-Mail Preference Service (e-MPS).
I used to get a lot of telemarketing calls, but about a year ago I started asking every caller to place me on their no-call list. Since then I've gotten far fewer calls. My spam, on the other hand, is increasing all the time. So far I've been able to keep it under control, but I'm going to keep the e-MPS in mind for the future. (Maybe I'll set up a new email account to test its effectiveness.)
I've always thought a good model to stop/slow spammers would be ambulance chasers. jurisdiction by jurisdiction we put up laws on unsolicited commercial e-mail, and along will follow a gaggle of ambulance chasers bankrupting spammers.
This might be of interest:
RFC-3098 How to Advertise Responsibly Using E-Mail and Newsgroup
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
I don't know why this is so hard for people to understand. Let's say that every company in the world obeys the DMA and provides an easy mechanism to opt-out. And every company who buys an email list first sends mail to it asking you if you want to opt-out, before they send their ads--just the way the DMA asks.
Now how many opt-out messages do you think you'll get every day? Each one of them with different instructions of course, some requiring you go to a web site and enter your email address, some requring that you reply with a particular subject, some requiring that you send mail to some other address. And if you don't follow the instructions??? You get the spam.
So, how many of those do you want to have to deal with every day? 5? 10? 100? And how will you tell them from the illegal spammers who forge their instructions and whose "opt-out" url is actually an advertisement?
Get it through your heads. Opt-out doesn't work. Ever. If they want permission to send random email to random people, OR EVEN TO EMAIL ADDRESSES ENTERED ON THEIR WEB SITE, they *have* to use verification. If I don't reply with a "YES"--I never get email from them again. Very simple. Anything else is going to be a disaster.
And this isn't about the fox guarding the henhouse. They have a larger objective. They understand, for better or worse, that when the voting public gets irate enough with spam that the legislatures will eventually get involved and pass a law to restrict spam and that no matter how good intentioned it might be, it will adversely affect ALL marketers, even those that are doing their best to be nice about it.
Its happened before. Someone screams about people pirating movies by breaking encryption, and now it becomes illegal to even try breaking encryption. Just as many movies are pirated as before, because the people pirating movies were already breaking the law. Breaking another one doesn't change anything. But a lot of otherwise honest citizens are now restricted in a new way.
People scream about all the child porn. So what do the lawmakers do? They pass a law that doesn't only outlaw the possession of child porn (which I agree with), but also anything that APPEARS to be child porn, so loosely defined that a girl that LOOKS under 18 wearing a bikini is now defined as child porn. I believe this was overthrown or amended in the courts later, but the point stands.
The DMA would rather make the effort to get the spammers into some type of compliant mode where the voting public is no longer outraged with them. Since I believe, as I'm sure they do, that this will not actually be all that successful, they at least want to make sure that they, and the companies they represent, can offer a clear cut, honest, consumer friendly way to market via email so that good intentioned, but unaware and misguided legislators don't do something silly like outlawing ALL marketing via email or passing laws that would make something as legitimate as signup mailing lists illegal. It COULD happen, and its better for all involved that the involvement of the government is minimal.
-Restil
Play with my webcams and lights here
Doesn't that make you feel all pink and squishy inside?
I have a pink and squishy Laura Crow voodoo doll. Its basically Laura Croft with lots of nails (pins were too small) through her spamabody.
I haven't had a credit card company or a long distance company (MCI was the worst) call me since I added my number to the DMA list.
Really, direct marketers that use traditional methods (real mail, telephone) don't want to waste money on people who will not buy from them - it saves them money to use the DMA opt-out lists by increasing response rate - at least that's the theory. e-mail is essentially free, so no marketer has an incentive to use this new list, but the telephone one really works due to the cost of telemarketing.
You can believe me or not; they don't call me anymore so I win whether you do or not :)
I heard that the first step in their campaign was going to involve sending out e-mails announcing the initiative to every business in America.
Maybe it's true what the Brits say about us Americans, that we tend to miss sarcasm. I can't imagine anyone's having written this whopper with a straight face, unless s/he was a stooge for the DMA, and yet it just doesn't have the proper ironic tone.
Ooh, moderator points! Five more idjits go to Minus One Hell!
Delendae sunt RIAA, MPAA et Windoze
Way back when, every PC had a DMA controller built right in! We could transfer spam to
WWJD for a Klondike Bar?
.....and the Pope shits in the woods.
So for $100 buck a year every not clown company on earth can send an unlimited amount of garbage out to the world and cost everyone just as much as "I love you"? No thanks. How about a nice meat space analogy to explain things:
Spam is like litter. Throwing a beer can out the window is not a big deal until everyone does it. Then you live in a world full of trash. It's oppresive, costly and wasteful. Someone has to spend their time picking it up rather than doing something creative or useful. The internet is every bit as public a place as the highway system. No one's rights are violated when you keep them from trashing the world and no one's rights are violated when you tell them they can't fill everyone's mailbox with garbage. They are just as free to put that trash on their web site as I am to sell manure or let people haul it away.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
M$ Harvester intentionally mistakes gender to keep your clients ammused. This enables you to send mails that are actually read and ensures positive complience with your program. Our power users love it. We've gotten a number of complaints about this feature from other users however and we will fix that buffer overflow in Havester2002.
Thanks for your interest! Keep using the M$ Spam Set, the only spam development sweet that's fully integrated with the operating system from your desk to your client's desks. Our helpful newsletter is atatched below and you have been added to our list.
SpamWare 2002 newsletter 10,569 jan 25 10PM - Generated by Spambot on a Genuine Intel system!
NEW SPAM ASSISTANT
Tired of the same old Paper Clip (TM) Office Assistant (TM) that every program, even VI uses? We thought you were, because all of our usability tests showed people cursing and screaming at him before we integrated him into MSIE. Well, goog news! To compliment the dancing dogs and other custom denial of computing services our fine OS offers, we've made a special spam assistant just for M$ Spamware users! The new assistant not only gives you helpful hints on using spamware, it tells you clever details of your competition's use of Spamware. That's right the new Rat Fink assistant face conceals spyware (TM) to tell us everything you do while advertising our new product to you.
TWICE THE SPEED ENHANCEMENTS
By applying SpamWare patch #97497394a3874 (see link at end of article!) your harverster software will work twice as fast. That's because the patch duplicates entries so you can send that letter twice! Everyone needs duplicates, right? Everyone needs duplicates, right? You would not want your helpful message to get burried in your client's mailbox. Sending it twice, by having harvester record everyone twice, really makes that message stand out!
STEVE BALLER WINS PRODUCTIVITY AWARD!
Steve Baller, marketing wizzer extraordinary's revolutionary enhancment to SpamWare (TM) has netted him a major award! His pioneering work with "opt-out" concepts has been a boon to the Spamming Developer's Network. Go Team! Way to innovate.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
Spammers lie.
Anything the DMA states isn't worth reading because the organization has always been rabidly pro-spam and shows no signs of changing this position. If they want people to listen they need to start taking action instead of making up guidelines that are nothing more than an attempt at legitimizing spam as a practice while simultaneously discrediting their competition (spammers who aren't part of the DMA).
You can be sure that this "self-regulation" will be as honest as that practiced by Trust-E and ICANN.
Of course the DMA has one very good reason to continually promote opt-out: they fear that if they moved to opt-in that no-one would opt-in and they will go out of business (well, that's just too bad - no-one should be forced to read adverts they don't want). We can also note that Empire Towers, SAMCO, Alan Ralsky and all the other spammer scum listed at The Register of Known Spam Operations are of course members of the DMA and will follow its guidelines in full. Not.
Here's a quick breakdown of the spam I receive:
75% is in a character set or language I can't read. (I filter anything *.tw, that takes out a lot of those)
10% promises to enhance my sexual performance
5% asks me to look at their bestiality or incest pics
5% is "really not a pyramid or chain letter scheme" to make money fast.
5% says I HAVE WON!!!! something, where I usually can't figure out WHAT I've actually won. (usually it's an amazing opportunity)
<1% is for products I might actually use in this lifetime.
I don't know who of the above the DMA represents, but I don't think they have a large influence on the crap in my inbox.
Be wary of any facts that confirm your opinion.
There are many possible solutions to spam, and it irks me to no end that I can't stop it. I can change my e-mail address, but the same way that spammers the world over have my address, friends, relatives, and legitimate companies have and use that address. I estimate that it would take me at least 6 months to find all these people and tell them of my new address. Meanwhile, I can't abandon the old address.
Synergy is your friend
here's how the DMA protects you today. A link in the local newspaper jumps me to the DMA website, www.the-dma.org, with the big white box on the left to opt out of unwanted solicitations. the resultant page has internal links to click to opt out of (a) direct mail, (b) telemarketing, (c) spam. all three links go to a 404 page that says "We're sorry, this feature is currently unavailiable."
n dex.htm, instead and file a comment on the Proposed Rule to put the government into whack-a-mole mode on telemarketers. that's the best game in town today.
yessir, the DMA is shit hot for our privacy.
why not jump over to the FTC, http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/edcams/donotcall/i
if the FTC link is munged up, and I see a space in preview inside the word INDEX, just hit www.ftc.gov and click likely-looking boxes twice to get there.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Testing to see if robots crawl Slashdot. :D
2wxa-bx5n@dea.spamcon.org --- Disposable email address, all email sent is flagged as spam and brought to my attention