TrustE Launches Trusted Spammer Program

Silverhammer writes: "InfoWorld is reporting that such luminaries as TRUSTe, ePrivacy Group, MSN, and DoubleClick are getting together to develop a "trusted senders" program to certify "commercial email" and "elevate" it above ISPs' and end users' spam filters. Why, you ask? Because they believe it's actually our fear of fraud that's hurting their response rates. Apparently all that stuff about invasion of privacy and theft of resources is just a big misunderstanding..." The Infoworld story linked above has the best information about this seal program, but CNet has another story including a quote forecasting 1400 pieces of spam per person per day in five years. Update: 01/31 17:02 GMT by M : The FTC is announcing a crackdown on spam.

Comments

Re:Trusted Spam?

[fliplap]

My guess is they will do this using signed certificates. Kind of how https works, so certificates must match the server they are being sent from. I've wondered for years why this sort of thing isn't required, to make spammers ID spam w/ an advertisement ID, so we could choose to block advertisements.

Personally what I do is setup a seperate address for all my mailing list mail, and then dump everything with the word "remove" into the trash for my personal mail address. Of course i still glance at the trash, just to make sure.

Re:Why does Spam matter?

[Rude Turnip]

Spam is theft. Deleting it takes up time that eventually accumulates...time that can't be billed out. It also eats up network resources in terms of bandwidth and storage space. So, unlike postal junk mail, where the sender pays for postage, *you* pay for spam. Spam is like a collect call that you're forced to accept.

Re:You don't pay for junk mail via postal service

[monkeydo]

Wrong, wrong, wrong. Assuming that you are refering to the US postal service you are 100% wrong.

The USPS receives no tax dollars to pay for operations. Not some, not a little, not a few, NONE! The USPS pays for itself. That's why they have to occaionally raise rates. They can't just go ask for more tax dollars. If you don't like the US Mail, don't use it and you won't be paying for it. Don't you wish all government programs were like that?

Bulk mail, presorted stuff, stuff mailed and labeled by machines is actually cheaper for the Post Office to deliver, but the PO doesn't pass ALL of this cost savings on to the Bulk Mailers. You see, those folks sending out junk mail are actually SUBSIDISING YOU! That Valentine's Day card you're about to send to your grandmother costs you less than it should because of all those coupons and solicitations you receive.

If you eliminated junk mail from the US Mail, the Postal Service would cost _more_ per piece to maintain, the price of stamps would go _up_ and it wouldn't save a dime from the Federal Budget.

Re:Truste is Irrelevant

[CaptainSuperBoy]

This is completely correct. TrustE will certify that you have a privacy policy, that's about it. When RealNetworks spammed their users repeatedly, anti-spam groups reported to TrustE that Real was violating their own privacy policy. TrustE should have revoked Real's membership, but they did nothing.

Also, what does spam have to do with privacy? TrustE mostly concerns themselves with how companies use your information - but spammers don't have any information about you, only an e-mail address they harvested or bought!