Slashdot Mirror
80% Of Incoming E-mail At Hotmail Is Spam
The Llama King writes: "According to this AP story at The Houston Chronicle, 80 percent of the e-mail that makes its way into Hotmail's user inboxes is spam. And that does not include the UCE caught by Hotmail's filters. This is the first of a three-part series the Associated Press is doing on spam."
So I think it's time that we hit them where it hurts. Pass -strong- laws. Pass laws that permit individuals to sue in certain circumstances.
What good is that going to do? Do you actually know the identity of the person spamming you? You can't sue John Doe defendants in Small Claims Court.
This has been said for months, but it's obvious why the spam gets through: because Microsoft lets it get through.
If you don't check your Hotmail account for a few weeks, spam will surely push you over the 80% mailbox size limit... and suddenly you get an email from Microsoft telling you that you've nearly reached your limit, and you should upgrade for only $x a month.
Also, don't they also have an advanced spam filter for paid accounts?
hotmails servers allow spammers to verify email addresses. so spammers use a program to verify every abc123 combo up to like 12 chars. Yahoo etc does NOT allow you to verify email addresses via their servers.. this cuts down on a lot of the spam.
What was your username again? -BOFH
So you want to make anonymous email illegal?
No, I want to make anonymous spam (commercial) e-mail illegal. There is no reason for a legitimate business advertising their goods or services should do so anonymously by spamming people.
Most spam is the result of an account owner's own actions (direct and indirect).
So, my 8 year old son, who is not allowed to use email without supervision, is responsible for all the pornographic spam he gets in his Hotmail account? My wife specifically set his account up as being a minor. He gets to send email to family only. And yet he receives 30+ unsolicited emails a day, 90% of which are pornographic in nature. And yes, we did set all the privacy options available on Hotmail. I'm guessing that our direct actions of trying to protect our son's email account so he can stay in touch easily with his grandparents is the issue. We have since switched to cable internet access and our son now uses one of our ISP provided emails (we get 6, which is a bit of an overkill). No difference in email patterns. Voila, suddenly he gets no spam.
In my universe I'm perfectly normal, it's not my fault you don't live in my universe.
"Sued by Verizon Communications for millions of dollars, spammer Alan Ralsky said he may simply move beyond the reach of U.S. courts to where service providers value cash more than complaints.
"I think China is good place to be," Ralsky said. "You don't get the same kind of grief.""
You go do that. And as more and more Chinese domains are blocked at the border Beijing will start to notice the effect it has on business there, where their businesses aren't able to reach customers that can afford such luxuries like "indoor plumbing" (with the local GDP per capita still hovering around $3600, China needs Western markets). And Beijing will start to impose new anti-spam laws with penalties ranging from all-expense paid trips to one of the interior's lovely "re-education" camps to death by an accute case of lead poisoning delivered to the back of the head (conducted in stadiums so we all had the chance to cheer them on).
Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out!