FTC Encourages Consumers to Forward Them Spam

Burl Ives writes "See this CNN Article. 'The FTC encourages consumers to forward any spam they receive to the e-mail address uce@ftc.gov'. I'd say if they've posted their e-mail on the web, they are probably getting as much as the rest of us already, which isn't to say I'm not hoping to see some discussion of using the statistical spam sorters to auto forward a lot to them in encouragement..." I've been using SpamAssassin for some time now with excellent results. Perhaps now I need to have my spam folder auto-forward to the FTC as well.

Comments

If...

[darkov2]

...we find FTC commissioners have suddenly become very thin and rich with enourmous penises, we will know they got the spam.

Re:What will they do?

[Amit J. Patel]

I used to send them all my spam, but like you, I started wondering what they did with it. I think I'd start sending them spam if they sent me a summary monthly of:

You sent us 1385 spam messages.
We had not seen 18 of them before.
We prosecuted 58 of the spammers:
13 were shot
19 were beheaded
26 were forced to read spam in prison

They'd probably get a lot better response rate that way.

- Amit

Read about Microsoft's efforts to do this.

[fmaxwell]

From http://www.bbspot.com/News/2002/03/block.html

Microsoft Unveils New Spam Blocking Technology
By Francisco Rangel

Redmond, WA - Microsoft has taken a new step in the ongoing fight against spam. The software company will offer a new Spam Blocking service named "Block XP". Initially, the service was tested on Hotmail accounts, but now is included as an IIS Service.

At a press conference, Steve Ballmer explained, "Our new system is guaranteed to only let through the e-mail that you want to see." He then proceeded to dance around singing, "Unspamable! Unspamable! Unspamable! Unspamable!"

Bill Gates spoke to the audience, explaining how the system works. "We've replaced unreliable computer filtering with specially trained third-world laborers. These workers, or 'Spam Blockers' as we like to call them, will personally check each and every one of the e- mails you are getting. Any suspicious messages will be sent to a Junk Mail folder or deleted right away."

The initial Hotmail users, were impressed by the new technology. "This system really has cut down on the spam I've been receiving. Come to think of it I haven't gotten any e-mails recently," said Harold Gorman, MSCE.

Consuela Xiang a 12 year old veteran employee of Microsoft's Block XP project said, "I get mail. I delete mail. I eat today."

Some users did remark that they were receiving more "special offers" about Windows XP and MSN than they did before the system was put in place.

George W. Bush chastised Microsoft for exporting e-mail monitoring jobs when the US had a fully staffed FBI already in place.

Sorry, but it looks like someone beat you to the idea. ;-)

Re:Self-inflicted DDOS

[RiotXIX]

...and then blames terrorists.