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."

Comments

Ya right

[sllort]

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.

Spam control

[archnerd]

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

Preview of the guidelines...

[jmorse]

I can just see those guidelines now:

• When indiscriminately sending unsolicited email, please be sure to spoof the mail headers so the mail can't be traced back to you.
• When mail-bombing the hotmail.com domain, please refrain from sending mail to billgates@hotmail.com or your software liscences may suddenly expire.
• Please pre-pend the subject lines of all unsolicited email with the ADV: prefix...(uncontrolable laughter ensues)
• When providing a fake "remove" link in an email, be sure that the address doesn't implicate your company or the DMA. remove262@yahoo.com usually works best.
• When marketing to a technically-inclined demographic, refrain from inserting the phrase "ALL YOUR PRIVACY ARE BELONG TO US" in the email. It's not only distatsteful, it's downright cliche.

Spam can be amusing...

[Junta]

I mean, my wife gets e-mails telling her to enlarge her penis and I get e-mail telling me to enlarge my breasts....