DoubleClick Gets Into Spam

keytoe writes: "Well, just when we thought everyone's favorite Privacy Snoop was starting to mellow out a bit, we discover this little tidbit. DoubleClick is now branching out from the ad serving business into the SPAM business due to the fact that direct email marketing 'is one of the few forms of Internet advertising that is thriving.' Using DARTmail, you can now target your bulk mailings 'based on profile data.' I wonder which profiling data they're talking about. Perhaps, say, all the data they've been collecting for years?"

Comments

Like I said in another story...

[Dimensio]

...the only solution is to kill the spammers. DoubleClick has stated an intent to send unsolicited bulk e-mail, thus it should be considered justifiable to destroy their corporate HQ and kill the CEO as a preemptive strike.

Barring that, who hosts DoubleClick? Don't they have an anti-spam policy? If not (or if so and they choose to ignore it for DC), wouldn't it be prudent to configure your routers to drop all packets from their owned IP blocks?

Re:Spam isn't effective - market forces don't appl

[prizzznecious]

My face isn't the one in question. I have no idea whether or not spam is TRULY effective, because I don't have any first-hand experience. However, it may interest you that in the text of the Slashdot post itself lies this:

DoubleClick is now branching out from the ad serving business into the SPAM business due to the fact that direct email marketing 'is one of the few forms of Internet advertising that is thriving.'

Clearly, regardless of your intuition or otherwise, Doubleclick thinks that spam is more profitable than banner ads. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to remember that while YOU personally may not respond well to spam (or anyone you know, for that matter) geeks generally do not. In fact, geeks tend to get really overexcited about the issue (for example, claiming that it is theft "plain and simple") but most people couldn't care less, and even seem to be buying spammed products. All of your postulations are all well and good, but the only reason to advertise is to sell more products, spam has been around for a while and its presence is only growing, therefore spam must be an effective way of selling products. That is what is plain and simple.

Re:Spam isn't effective - market forces don't appl

[Philbert Desenex]

Clearly, regardless of your intuition or otherwise, Doubleclick thinks that spam is more profitable than banner ads. ... but the only reason to advertise is to sell more products, spam has been around for a while and its presence is only growing, therefore spam must be an effective way of selling products. That is what is plain and simple.

Oh, please; Are you seriously asking me to believe that any business, especially "natural viagra" spammers, pyramid schemers and an ad company like DoubleClick actually use some kind of analysis to decide what to do? You might as well ask me to believe that Pro Wrestling isn't rigged. It's pretty clear that DoubleClick's backed into a corner by the low rates that people will pay for crappy banner ads. DoubleClick is grasping at straws in the only business they know: lying to people.

Besides the issue of businesses making decisions on minimal data, you should read what I wrote: spam may be around, but whether the amount of spam is growing or shrinking has little to do with selling products. Your intuition that a relationship exists between spam quantity and selling products is demonstrably weak. Read the article to which you respond.

don't forget...

[Jucius Maximus]

Smartin Designs.

The lameness filter won't let me paste the list in here and post but the hosts blocking list they have there is a good 400k long. I use it religiously.

Here's a hint for the less informed: In windows9x/me edit the file \windows\hosts to allow you to redirect sites like doubleclick so they won't receive their web bug, cookie and other ad-tracker data. The text to insert can be found at the above site. For win2k/NT it's in \winnt\system32\drivers\etc\hosts.

In linux, the hosts file is in \etc\hosts.

Go have fun ;-)

Re:frosty posty

[LordKariya]

Thanks. I think I'll start with a J0nkatz story about his search for love - of a young goat. I'll call it "Lord of the zoo : Fellowship of the goat".