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DMA to Control Spam by DMA Members

Posted by michael on from the baby-steps dept.

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."

7 of 204 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Yeah Right by Jason+Levine · · Score: 5, Informative

    Their "do not call" lists might be scams, but the state government Do Not Call Registry does work. I'm on the NY one and if a telemarketer calls we simply inform them that we're on the registry and they'll be fined $2,000 if they ever call back. Sure there are loopholes (anyplace you've ever done business with can call you), but it's better than nothing. You'd be surprised how quickly some telemarketers react when they hear "...on the Do Not Call Registry..." :-)

    --
    My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
  2. Marketing People: Spam Works by Bonker · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

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    1. Re:Marketing People: Spam Works by Tackhead · · Score: 5, Informative
      > > 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.
      >
      > I hope you were at least considering putting some obvious, easily-recognized string in, say, subject, so that most people's existing filters would trash the SPAM immediately. :)

      You mean like <HTML>? ;-)

      Actually, I think I know what happened to the bimbo in question. Or a clone of her, by the name of Laura "Boy, am I ever gonna have to eat some" Crow. She works at Earthpink. I got a pile of spam from her this morning.

      I know it's from Laura, because her spam has her name in the comments as the document's creator, and I know Laura's somewhat bimbo-like because the spam had a bunch of IMG SRC tags pointing to "D:\11 12 01 Laura Crow\New Emails\CidcoEmail_FINALJAN_020121_files\t(1).gif"

      Way to go, Laura Crow! Ur 733t HTML h4x0ring sk1llz r so 733t, u h0t b@b3!

      A little Googling has revealed that I'm not the only one getting Laura's spam.

      1) Spammers lie.
      2) If you think a spammer's telling the truth, see Rule #1.
      3) Spammers are stupid.

      Rule #3 in action again.

      But if you want a glimpse at the future the DMA proposes for "opt-out", look for the opt-out link in Laura's spam:

      It's a Mailto: tag to "mailto:opt-out@earthlink.net?subject=Opt-out_Cidc o012202"

      It doesn't opt you out of all Earthpink-generated spam. Only Laura's Cidco spam. When Earthpink wants to spam you again for another company, or even when Earthpink wants to send the next Cidco spam (hopefully coded by someone who knows how to make web bugs work, unlike our dear Laura) it'll be a different list, and a different Subject: in the opt-out request.

      Doesn't that make you feel all pink and squishy inside?

  3. Preview of the guidelines... by jmorse · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    --

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  4. Re:DMA not really the problem... by shamino0 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I would like to think so, but they've been proven liars in the past.

    Several years ago, when Canter & Segal (the "green card lawyers" who broke the ice for spammers) were abusing the internet, the DMA announced that they would be creating a "global opt out list". Supposedly, you'd add your address to the list, and no DMA member would ever spam you.

    Except it didn't work. Many people at news.admin.net-abuse.email decided to test this list. They created virgin e-mail accounts and submitted the addresses to the DMA opt-out list. Within hours, the accounts were spammed. Since the addresses were never used anywhere other than the DMA list, it became obvious that either the DMA was spamming from that list, or they were making it available to spammers.

    If they think I'm going to trust them this time around, they're crazy.

    Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

  5. Here's a good way to block lots of SPAM by TheFlu · · Score: 5, Informative

    Add the following to your sendmail.mc file:

    FEATURE(dnsbl,`bl.spamcop.net')dnl
    then run
    m4 /etc/mail/sendmail.mc > /etc/sendmail.cf

    Works for me...doesn't block it all, but it seems to help a great deal.

    --

    --It's Pimptastic!--

  6. Here's an idea by mrroot · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

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