Slashdot Mirror
Feds Cracking the Whip on Spammers
Britano writes "Fox News is reporting that the FTC has started to go after spammers and online scammers. So the governement has finally started on the side of the consumer. "The Federal Trade Commission announced Tuesday that is has created a nationwide task force that has already brought 63 law enforcement actions against Web-based scams ranging from auction frauds to bogus cancer-curing sites." Hey, this way we don't have to spend our own money on fighting this problem!"
I bet them spammers like the taste of the whip! Filthy bondage whores...
when /dev/null does it for free ? :-)
Smile, don't click...
don't pay your taxes much, eh taco?
What about Alex Chiu?? :P hehehe
"Cyberspace is a wondrous place, but we are quickly learning it can also be a dangerous place for the unwary," she said. "Con artists who once relied on telephone boiler rooms and mass mailings can now rip people off through Web sites and e-mail."
In a related news story, Fox reports that gullible people often get ripped off.
Ok, here's the thing. I strongly believe spam would go away if people would QUIT BEING STUPID. If they would just think for a minute and say hmm, it seems this magic Cancer cure is too good to be true. Why haven't I heard about it in other sources? Now, I will say that these bastards selling hope in the form of a cancer cure is genuinely despicable, and they need to share a room with Bubba for doing it. However, WISE UP PEOPLE!!!! Do you really think xsegry17l33t@yahoo.com is a viable businessman? Come on!
-5 redundant
Sent from your iPad.
In the case of spam the only effective solution is filters. Of course, if you download all the mail to your local spool and THEN apply the filter you haven't saved much. A better idea is a centralized filtering agency, set up by the government.
We'd all be assigned an email address (like we have a snail address) that email would be sent to. Automated programs would deleted "For Your Eyes Only #087A" crap and trained agents would sift through everything else.
Only by constance governmental vigilance can we keep our email freedom!
"I think all of us have found something in our e-mail that is highly suspect," said Eileen Harrington, associate director of the FTC Bureau of Consumer Affairs. "They may be subject to law enforcement."
;-)
Does this mean that I can sue all these US spammers who invite me to become a callgirl, get cheaper payments om my house, get a higher turn over on investments or grow a larger penis
Not that I actually fall for these things, I never assume for a minute that I can get a loan in the US based on my house in the Netherlands, but it would be nice to sue somebody, just for the experience...
I can get really pissed of about this stupid spamm stuff which does not even discriminate the difference between continents when offering local (scam) stuff.
.. because after I read a story here last month and found out about the uce@ftc.gov address they want spam forwarded to, I've probably crashed their email servers 10 times with the volume I've pushed to them.
People - use this address to bounce your spam to - it appears something is actually being done about it!
(This is debatable) Better to have the feds go after these people then report to spamcop and have, well, ISPs breathing down your back.
This is only happenning because the online scam people don't have an effective Washington lobby and don't make enough campaign contributions.
After the FTC goons have pushed them around a bit, they'll get the idea and start paying the protection money, ah, sorry, right, that should be the "campaign contributions" (like the media industries do).
Buy a few senators and the FTC will fight with you not against you.
That's a good idea... And if you order now, you can become part of our "NO-SPAM / SCAM" list, at the low cost of $299.99! Your name, address, and email will be collected and stored in our special database in which we promise never to spam or scam you again. Trust us!
=-Jippy
I'm suspecting that Shifman Consulting won't be on the list of people to be sued. I don't recall ever seeing Bernie Shifman providing or ever promising a service, other than providing hemorrhoids to his spam recipients.
Shape them up. Get them straight. We need to go forward and move ahead. Try to detect spam. It's not too late to whip them. Whip them good.
There should be a spam tax, or something similar.
This is all commercial speeach, and so therefore the government can charge a fee to defrays the costs to the system.
My own solution is to make every spammmer have a spamm license, so that they are easily traceable for billing purposes. We can all bill them. I have also suggested a cute orange ear tag for spammers, nut this is merely an optional element for the plan.
The other part of this is to make it profitable for people to track down illegal spammers and get them arrested, make them pay the fees we shoiuld be charge them. Enough people do this for no money [track them down], and are expert at it, so why not let them get some financial reward out of it?
Future spam:
Make Money Fast Tracking Down Illegal Spam!
[smile]
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
UCE@FTC.GOV
Excellent. Now I'll just provide that address to all of those "you must provide your email address -- not that we'd ever spam you..." registration-required sites.
--G
it's always interesting to read all the possible things a guy can be tricked into doing with his penis (enlarging, pumping, drugging it with viagra (herbal or normal), etc...)
it's a whole new world for a gel
Not that spam is meat, but anyone notice the appropriateness of the name Carnivore?
Dang it... I just sent you an email telling you about a great new product to grow your penis at least 2". I thought you really could use it, and now I'm going to get in trouble with the FTC. :(
You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life. --Winston Churchill
Howard Beale was the volatile news anchor in Network who exhorted his audience to "...go to the window, open it, stick your head out and yell":
I'm mad as hell, and I'm not not going to take this anymore!