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!"
for the government to get it's invasive little paws into the stream of email everywhere! Sounds like an excuse to install "Herbivore". "It's a SPAM-fighter! Honest!" Can't wait to see my tax dollars at work.
The US should pay us this favor, as it is US citizens bugging us in the EU and other countries with spam. I get 5 US emails a day inviting me to invest in stuff, use herbal viagra etc.
US spammers eat up the working time of people around the world who have to delete all this stuff.
What's the point of behaving like a civilised being when you're dealing with barbarians? Uh, because you're a civilised being, not a barbarian. I think that applies at any level of human interaction.
Sure, I've read all the warning about doing it, and how it makes your address more valuable, but I'm inclined to think that's a load of moo poo. I mean, if you're a spammer, buying email addresses from another spammer by the millions, are you really going to believe (i.e. pay more for) an assurance that ten thousand of them are "recently verified"? I simply don't give spammers enough credit to believe that there's any mechanism for elevating the value of an address up through the feeding chain.
Don't get me wrong, I also Spamcop every piece of spam immediately, before waiting for the non-response. I'm not a saint. But I don't believe that you can make it worse by demonstrating (to yourself if nobody else) that you're a civilised being.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.