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FTC Sues Six in Spam E-Mail Round-Up
TamMan2000 writes "This story over at Yahoo makes it look like the federal government is going after some spammers with gusto... Although they seem to be busting them for fraud via spam rather than just the fact that they spam, it is still good to see them going after them. Also interesting, it looks like one of the things they are nailing them for is the fraudulent 'remove me from your mailing list' that actually brings more spam."
I am glad to see that the federal government is addressing spam. Now if they could make it illegal, that would be better.
http://phreakinb.com
In other news the FTC reached a settlement with Miss Cleo (the companies that run her stuff rather) for decieving customers and generally being assholes.
It's about time, I reckon. If get one more:
"FREE VIAGRA SHIPPED FROM MEXICO"
or
"Re: You want to have HOT ANAL sex!!!!"
email I may drop kick my computer across the room.
What scares me is the people who don't mind this.
Remember, Capone was busted for tax evasion -- not for his worst crimes. Get 'em any way you can.
How much would it cost to extradite Koreans and Chinese for spamming - thousands of them a year??
It isn't even good when it is from a can.
I especially like them going after people who have the fake "click here to be removed" which really means "click here to get a thousand times more spam". It's nice to see that one of the better laws is finally getting enforced. I always laugh when I hear about some of the crazy laws we have and how many we have that never get enforced.
For example, in South Dakota it is legal to shoot Native Americans under certain conditions. There are a couple laws regarding this. One law states that if there are 5 Native Americans (the law uses the term Indian but I will refrain from that), on your property, you may shoot them. Another one that may be only applicable to the town of Spearfish is that if there are three Native Americans walking together, you may declare them a war party and shoot them. Another law says they have to be crossing a bridge to be a war party and shootable.
So many crazy laws in this country. But back to the point, the anti-spam is a good law, in my opinion and it's nice they are finally going to enforce it.
How is it that one careless match can start a forest fire, but it takes a whole box to start a campfire?
From: antispam@ftc.gov
To: evilspammer@somewhere.kr
Subject: !!!!NEW!!! SPAM BUST!!
Yes, YOU! We are busting you up big time for crimes against humanity. This is a free service to you from the FTC! A unique one time offer!
To be acquitted and removed from our list, please go to this web site and leave your home address.
Eight minutes?! Damn, that's what those ads for 'make money fast over the internet' are all about. All you have to do is hang around chat rooms and sell email addresses to spammers.
Seriously, though, eight minutes? If it's a bot, I'm really impressed...
Of course the federal government is going after spammers. The Direct Marketing Assoc. just recently changed their position on spam because people were so sick of it that the DMA members' "legitimate" ads weren't getting through. I think the DMA screwed themselves, though: By preventing legislation against sending spam, they forced the spam victims to invent better ways of avoiding it at the receiving end. Those methods are now doing a wonderful job of killing the DMA's crap.
It's not widely known, but the FTC does excellent consumer protection work.
I worked on a (for a court) regarding those TV ads that promised you could buy a Corvette at government auction for $10 or get a credit card regardless of your credit history. The FTC involvement was important because it took an incredible amout of work to nail the slimeoid who ran the schemes -- he just kept repackaging them. He finally ended up in jail, unusual for this sort of low-grade fraud, but a last resort after he scoffed at every other penalty.
Sound like a spammer?
it looks like one of the things they are nailing them for is the fraudulent 'remove me from your mailing list' that actually brings more spam.
Yeeeaaahhh. Get those bastards and make 'em pay. This one in particular has caused an acquantance of mine (in her 90's) problems. She honestly and naively attempted to remove herself from many of these spammers and only ended up getting more and more frustrated before calling me to inform me that due to the porn spam she was getting, she was cancelling her email account unfortunately isolating her from an important communication medium to family members and friends scattered all over the country.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
As the article points out, Uncle Sam wants your spam! Forward your unsolicited commercial email to uce@ftc.gov - it will go into a magic database that they can use as ammunition against spammers!
Wired recently had an article about the FTC and spam.
"The FTC can only legally pursue cases where there are clear instances of spam being used to perpetuate a scam or conduct fraudulent business activities.
"The test is: Does the spam make a representation, an offer of some sort of product or service? Is that representation false? And would an average consumer believe that the representation was true?" Huseman explained. "If those conditions are met, the FTC can act."
Just think, millions of spam messages get sent to uce@ ftc.gov (not easy to remember), yet only six people are on the job.
Do we really want Big Brother stepping in to regulate our network activities? As much as I believe spam is an abhorrent practice (I am a devotee of TMDA), I don't believe the government is acting in my best interest. How, exactly, do they determine what is spam and what is not? How soon will it be before the feds come knocking at your door after unleashing a flood of e-mails requesting your money back from an on-line vendor?
The bad thing about all this is that the government is making the rules up as it goes along. Anybody who believes this is A Good Thing is deluding themselves. Every time cases like these are prosecuted successfully, a little freedom is taken away from the governed, and a little more power is granted to the governors.
Download my list of spammers, which is updated every day or so: /etc/firewall/blacklisted_nets and run a bash script:
/etc/firewall/blacklisted_nets`
http://enthalpy.homelinux.org/spammers.txt
Then dump it in
for I in `cat
do
echo Blacklisting Spammer: $I/23
iptables -A INPUT -s $I/23 -j REJECT
done
It puts a drag on the spammer's system as they try to send mail to you for 5 days or so before their mail server finally gives up and decides your domain is not reachable.
Of course you need to have your own domain to do this, but with Linux and free Dyn-DNS services, this is not a problem. And it WORKS!
You can forward your spam to uce@ftc.gov. Some spammer took a random address from one of my domains to use as a return address. I was suddenly getting hundreds of bounced spam per hour. I redirected that address to uce@ftc.gov. Hopefully they are using some of those bounces in this roundup.
From the Yahoo! story:
Internet users can forward spam for FTC investigation to uce@ftc.gov
How many spambots will harvest that address?
How excellent a way is that for spammers to hang themselves?
How about a law against ALL CAPS in e-mail? At the very least, we'd get rid of the more annoying stuff. Plus, what member of the registered voting population would vote against this? It could even weed out the unsavory elements of IRC.
RedBetty: Hi, everyone!zerokool772: WHTA R U WEARNG??/?
FTCBot: zerokool772, your use of the capslock key is unwarranted and without license. Cease and desist, or pay the consequences.
zerokool772: WTF DO U THNK U R?
*FTCBot has banned zerokool772 and has contacted the appropriate authorities.
The only way the FTC can go after spam is for fraud and other things already illegal. It's not illegal simply to advertise via email (yet, anyway). They're doing the best they can with the rules that they're allowed to govern in.
:)
At least they are one division of government that doesn't try to overstep its bounds
josh
hookers and grits.
Billboards actually have been outlawed. The only reason they're still around is because the ones that were already in place have been grandfathered.
On a related note, Barbara Anthony, regional director for the FTC said, "In all fairness, it must be noted that my husband now has a permanently erect 47 inch penis, our mortgage rates are the lowest in decades, we earn $7,000 a week working at home, and we'll never buy a toner or ink cartridge ever again."
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
OF course spam that comes from Korea and China originates in the US anyway. Those Asians just dont know how to lock their servers down, but they are certainly not getting money for it and if anything loosing due to the bandwidth. Imagine if your mail server all the sudden seemed to stop working for 30 minutes but was actually sending out 100,000s emails from America back too America. I'd be pissed.
Remember. I never visit Korean or Chinese websites, so its not them stealing my email address...
That would work fine if they were to spam alot of different people... the problem is they only seem to spam ME many times! ... that will be $1 please.
come on fhqwhgads
Just seems a little strange considering Yahoo sells it's subscribers off to spammers after promising "Yahoo for life!" and offering a spam filter (ya right) :) Also for 2 years every email I sent to my friends had a little advertisement for Yahoo which could be considered spam then they decided to charge for the service they promised free.
Yahoo? My ass!!!!
FTC Sues Six in Spam Suit Soiree.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
I'm really suprised that spam-busting hasn't become a bigger political issue. There realyl isn't a large pro-spam lobby, and any senator/rep who campaigned against spam ("I'm going to ban spam! Vote for me") would pick up not only a lot of techie votes, but votes from the general population as well - there isn't really a pro-spam segment of the population, either.
Issues like this, which a few people (the spammers) act against almost everyone else's intrests are ripe for conventional political action... why hasn't it happened yet? Granted, there are examples at the state level, and they have run into legal hurdles, but I'm really suprised we havn't seen federal legislation yet - it seems like an easy way to pick up votes.
Laws like that are almost inevitably racism or similar bigotry masked by a seemingly innocent law.
To give a contemporary example with extremely offensive (and inaccurate) stereotypes, consider a hypothetical 1950s law prohibiting the eating of fried chicken and watermelon on the front porch.
Do you think the authors were really dealing with a problem of greasy chicken bones and slippery watermelon rinds on the nearby sidewalks?
Or do you think the law might be a not-so-subtle way of keeping certain people out of sight?
I have no idea which group beat their rugs on the front lawn, and which group found it a convenient way to "put them in their place," but I would lay long odds against the law actually dealing with an excess of public carpet floggings.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
this site's spam proofreading policy.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
Punishing the company advertising is problematic. Let's say I want to put one of my competitor's out of business... what's to stop me from hiring someone to flood the internet with ads in their name?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Next door to my friends grandparents lived the bo family. Kim Bo was the oldest son, sorta suffered from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) and had lived in his parents house well into his 40's.
:)
Nice enough guy, when we were teens he let us put a bunch of carp in his nasty green algea swimming pool. We spent the summer getting high, learning guitar rifts, and fishing for carp in our backyard fishing hole.
Well, eventually, his dad, the glue that was holding it all together died so his brothers and sisters wanted to sell the house and divide up the inheretance. Kim took his 150k share, bought a van, and spent the next 2 years living in his van, driving around playing music and doing odd jobs. It's not like he couldn't have gone and gotten a place, but at 40 this was what he decided to do with his life..
One day he got an e-mail "NIGERIAN OFFICIAL NEEDS HELP IN FUNDS TRANSFERS" or some shit like that. I saw him in person one day and he asked me if it was a scam. From all the stuff on slash I had read I knew it was.. But the promises in the e-mails were just too good for him to pass up.
The scammers had him convert everything to a cashiers check, then had him fly to amsterdam in person to deliver the check. He flew halfway across the world thinking there was going to be some big payoff for helping these people..
3 months later he hasn't seen a dime or heard from the people. He got screwed out of 150k in just one moment of handing over a check..
I know most smart people wouldn't fall for this, their "SCAM ALERT" alarm would go off in their heads. The sad thing is these people prey on people not of sound mind, the elderly, the lonely. To say, "Oh they should have known better" just doesn't fit because the MO of these scammers takes them directly to these types of people.
Kim Bo is doin alright. He had to sell his bass guitar, which he loved dearly and some other music stuff. He's doing odd jobs to keep gas in the van and food in his belly but at his age in his mental condition the outlook isn't going to be so bright in another 10 years.
Before someone suggest he goes to the FBI, well he's done that already, but the FBI told him there's not much they can do. Kinda sucks we got them goin on these wild Osama Bin Laden goose chases because the frequency of these scams seem to be increasing.
I hope the FTC nails these fuckers to the wall. Hopefully they'll be in the same cell as nasty nate and really get what they deserve
I thought we had killed
spam dead by writing haiku
I guess I was wrong.
Yes! Spammers are being arrested now! And maybe tomorrow, they'll start enforcing laws about pirated music and start arresting some (more) P2P users. And maybe after that, they'll start enforcing obscenity laws. Great, the Fed is now cracking down on the Net!
Ya' know with all of the bullshit floating around here about how Microsoft is "killing" the Net, them having a dominant browser is *nothing* compared to the Fed watching over your shoulder. For as bad spam was, at least the Net used to be free...
I have to tell you that sometimes (like this weekend when I received neary 9,000 bounced spam messages after a spammer used various email address at the domain I adminster in the "from" field of their emailings) I feel like becoming a hitman for hire.
:-)
Let's see...
I'd put up a website where you could send me your most despised spam and a $5 donation.
Once any given spammer accounted for $25K worth of donations, I'd put on my steel-capped boots and go pay them a visit.
A little basic "attitude readjustment" (courtesy of the said boots and the odd length of lead pipe) would provide significant encouragement for them to mend their spamming ways.
Photos of the repentant spammer (or what's left of them) would then be posted on the website as a warning to other spammers who might consider bothering Net users with their crap.
Now is there anyone who'd use such a valuable Net-community service I wonder?
IIRC, the "remove me" line is not required by any federal law. (Some states may require it.)
However, the spammers are cutting their own throat with it. Citing S.1816 (or whatever) as proof that the message "cannot be considered spam" is a lie. There is no, and has never been, any law of the United States passed by the Senate alone.
That's somewhat abstract - although it's still a criminal act in some states to claim something is the law when you know it is not. But the promise to remove the person's email address from future mailings is a very specific claim. This means that the spam is asking for something of indeterminant but real value (a valid email address which can be sold to other spammers) in exchange for a specific promise you have no intention of keeping. That's fraud, and I wouldn't mind seeing every spammer who makes that claim get hit with a warning letter followed by a stiff penalty.
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
I can almost guarentee such a title does not exist...
I'm really suprised that spam-busting hasn't become a bigger political issue. There realyl isn't a large pro-spam lobby, and any senator/rep who campaigned against spam ("I'm going to ban spam! Vote for me") would pick up not only a lot of techie votes, but votes from the general population as well - there isn't really a pro-spam segment of the population, either.
... the only additional legislation I would favor would be the ability for user's to sue for some amount of money (say, $500.00) for misuse of their system resources, but even that is a can of worms likely to be best left unopened (consider if someone sent SPAM out in your name, purporting to represent your company, and 10,000,000 people sued you for $500.00 for something you didn't do).
While I frequently take issue with the libertarian knee-jerk reaction against government involvement in just about any area, no matter how constructive it might be, in this particular case, much as I hate and loathe SPAM, I come down firmly on the libertarian side.
With Spam Assassin and other filtering packages we have the technology to take care of SPAM ourselves. We do not need the government passing new laws regulating how people communicate (even sleazeballs like Spammers), we can and should dump those people in the bit bucket ourselves, with our own software.
The anti-fraud laws are generally sufficient
We have the means, and the tools, to deal with these lowlifes ourselves. Let the FTC chase down those committing fraud, and let us filter out the rest ourselves.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
On a side note, why aren't ISPs taking a more proactive approach in stopping spam? I remember here a while ago that people were bitching because Verizon blocked all tcp port 25 except to their servers. This should help dramatically in stopping spam as Verizon can then detect it at their server. People here cried about it. If you want to use your SMTP server at work then use a VPN. It is unfortunate but there has to be tighter controls to stop spam at the ISP it originates from.
Enjoy the spam. :)
(sorry for the double post... I forgot to switch on cookies...)
Wait a minute people, I get spam as much as the next person (about 30-40 emails per day) and yes it is annoying. but I have gotten used to it. I don't think that it should be legistlated, the government already has enough trouble attempting to control the internet. the less legistlation we have regarding the internet the better. after all, how is spam any different form the advertisments via snail mail telling me that I could have won 10 million dollars. what would you do with that type of spam? Face it, as much as I hate it, spam is here to stay.
Excuse me? These are fraud (a felony) cases! They should be arresting the spammers and putting them in jail for at least 24 hours. The spammers should be facing criminal charges, not civil remedies.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Ever visit Hawaii? They have a state law that limits visible signs. On the highway this means the only large signs you see are directional signs erected by the Department of Highways. Advertising on the highways is essentially limited to iconic symbols on official tourism signs.
Off-highway limits are less strict but still significant. Corporate identity signs are limited in size and location to prevent "Times Square Syndrome". It's really quite refreshing to drive through a city or town and not see "golden arches" towering above the fast-food district. It can be pretty difficult to tell a high-rise apartment building from a hotel unless you know the address or look for a very small corporate sign over the lobby entrance.
Although they seem to be busting them for fraud via spam rather than just the fact that they spam,
This is unsurprising, because the FTC Act only governs conduct that constitutes "deceptive and unfair trade practices."
Everytime you get an unsolicited e-mail that has an unsubscribe option, unsubscribe webmaster@ftc.gov... also use in a message on a board known to be freqented by spambots. That should put an end to the stupidest of spammers, at least.
"I'm no psychic but I can foresee this: If you make deceptive claims, there is an FTC action in your future," said Howard Beales, director of the FTC's consumer protection bureau.
Priceless.
Also interesting, it looks like one of the things they are nailing them for is the fraudulent 'remove me from your mailing list' that actually brings more spam
I fell for this a few times, basically by hitting that link you notify el-spammer that your email is valid, giving him/her/it the opportunity to add you to a list of "verified" people to bombard to spam. This is REALLY one of the slimiest of the slimy tactics.
I don't suppose this court decision would force spammers to think about changing the "remove me" link to "Yeah, spam my ass like there's no tomorrow", since that's what it really does
So I was in the viedo-rental-sore with my roomate.
He says "That looks interesting" and points to a shelf.
I say "What? this?" picking up rather lame DVD.
"Not that... that!" he says, still pointing but stepping closer.
I pick up the cruddy DVD that was next to the first.
"No! This!" he says...
After several dense itterations I realize that he is talking about the rectanngular advertisement that is clipped to the shelf between two rows of DVDs. He is actually touching the sign by this point, and getting kind of upset.
It seems that I have cultured a blind spot for full-color rectangular advertisements immediately above or below anthing I feel is "content". It is so pervasive in my mental state that meat-world advertisements have begun getting the same treatment.
The comercialization of the internet has actually rendered me blind.
Square insets are next, and soon I wont even be able to read a text book any more.
Someone should do a study.
Innocent people shouldn't be forced to pay for inferior software development.
--"Code Complete" Microsoft Press
For as bad spam was, at least the Net used to be free...
It used to also be restricted almost exclusively to universities and government institutions. A dirt road doesn't need lane dividers and yield signs; a highway filled with ten gazillion yahoos does.
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.
It's unfortunate that law enforcement has a monopoly on law enforcement
:-)
:-)
Hey, according to the FTC, spamming per se isn't against the law anyway.
We're not talking about competing with the police, we're talking about competing with Dr Phil -- a little analysis and a whole lot of attitude adjustment
Is it anyone's fault if they have a little "accident" while you're chatting with them?
Slashing back to yesterday, the FTC can maybe set their sights on the Spam Queen featured on the fricking front page of the Wall Street Journal yesterday.
Lots of petrified grits
The courts have long support that saying whatever you want, whenever you want, to whomever you want is protected speech. Commercial speech does not have to be unrestricted speech. Take the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 for instance. That federal law (47 USC 227) outlaws and regulates several components of commercial speech. Making a prerecorded solicitation to a residential line, without a prior business relationship, is outlawed.
Believe me, I won a $1500 judgement (plus court costs) against a company that made one single, prerecorded call to my home last may. I settled for a $1000 check cut by the company's insurance. Unsolicited commercial faxes sent to any fax machine, business or residential, are prohibited unless you have a prior business relationship with the company. Live (operator) solicitation calls are not prohibited outright (exception: you are on an official state DNC list) on the first occurrence. Upon your request, they must add you on their list and maintain that request for 10 years. They must also send you, again on your request, a written copy of their policy regarding the maintenance of their company's DNC list. This is a matter of federal law. If you get 2 or more calls in violation of this request in 12 months, (I know, it *is* absurd that you have to get 2 violations in 12 months [which means they can call you every 53 weeks with no repercussions], but that is the way the law is written.), then you may sue in courts for statutory damages of $500 for [b]each[/b] violation and demand treble damage of triple the amount. My suit was for the $500 violation and then the treble damages.
The law was created to prevent the abuse of privacy and the inalienable right to b simple left alone. This law has ultimately been upheld in every major case to date (exception: the cousin of Rush Limbaugh [a federal judge] prevents its use in his district, but it is currently on appeal). The best part of this law is the private right of action that this law creates. Any spam bill passed must contain this portion or it will ultimately be a dead hand law. The government does not have the resources to attack this problem, so the rights of collecting damages has been given to the people.
To date I have received $1800 in settlement due to a single prerecord from 3 different companies. I have a case in December against a local junk faxer and fully expect a $1500 judgement (plus court costs). Do a google search for just the term 'junk fax' and get your eyes opened.
Some try to (erroneously) argue that the government has better things to do than make laws like this. The government does not have to make progress on every front just to make progress on any front. It is not the mere unwanted advertising, it is the fraudulent method and often illegal or illicit methods used to push it. I for one would not have a big problem with the law legitimize commercial email if it set the requirements regarding it such as a simple field that would thus allow people to choose on their own if they wish to receive it. If something as simple as '[ADV]' were required to be added to the subject line and headers could not be forged, then the problem as it is known would die. People can set a single, simple filter to block it if they do not wish,a nd that would be the end of it. Those that wish to get it will retain that right.
You thinking billboards equals spam misses the point [b]entirely[/b]. It does detract from the natural view, however those billboards are on private property using private resources that does not directly cost the consumer anything. What about people placing ads on your windshield or through your open window? One isn't bad, but would you mind of I stuffed several hundred into your car window? That is my 'right' is it not? Obviously you have not been shafted by a 'joe job' where a spammer uses your address as their 'reply-to' or 'remove' address causing you to get hundreds or thousands of bounce messages or angry threats each hour for several days. Try actually doing some research next time.
To really provide teeth to the bill, the consumer must be allowed to enforce it by collecting damages on their own.
Cave, wreck, and deep diver.
Any username*@(my domain).com will go to one mailbox of mine, but still retain the unique user name. Now, whenever I sign up for things that require an email address, I'll add some initials to the beginning of the user name. (For example, phsean@(a domain).com - PH referring to Pizza Hut) Next I'll stick that address on a paper with other names for future reference.
Now, if somebody spams me through an "initial email" I'll know who sold my name. I'll then follow up teh spam with a nice letter to the company stating why I will no longer do business with them. Seems like a simple way to see just how reliable those privacy policies are.
Note: Pizza Hut hasn't ever spammed me, twas just an example.
What this shows is that if laws were passed that made spam illegal, we'd get a lot less spam. You don't have to enforce every spam case to make an effect; just putting a few spammers in jail or fining them will change the behavior of many others. If not illegal (the best solution), at least require all spam to be marked so that it can be easily filtered. And include all spam, not just commercial spam.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
If that's happening to them, they should have no problem with filing a complaint against the spammer and/or suing them. It violates trade dress laws in most states and if nothing else, it would be trespass to chattels.
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
When enough spam comes from a country (not to name names [cough-Korea-cough]), the TLD becomes poison. People in the US get sick of dealing with the problem and simply block the whole damn country. Blocking .kr cut my spam in half. Eventually people in those countries whose legitimate email keeps bouncing will get on their own government's ass to deal with the problem in their own special way, like maybe a good caning.
Some of these people absolutely have no clue. Take for example, Laura Betterly, the so-called Spam Queen in this Wall Street Journal article (no reg). Quote: "I'm just trying to make a living like everyone else." Apparently Laura thinks we all make a living by being assholes. Now there's a caning candidate if there ever was one.
POPFile is a very nice Bayesian solution for Windows users (and everyone else).
That particular Yahoo story doesn't point it out, but the FCC is allowing these companies to "settle" by them promising not to do it again.
Oh right.
The only thing that will stop these spamsters is *stiff* penalties, like maybe a $100 fine per spam or jail time.
I agree with you, I think that physically kicking their ass, may not be a good idea (as much as I would love to hold them down while they recieve a good beating).
Why don't all the script kiddies out there put their DDOS to good use and choke the pipe of those who choke ours?
It would even make the cost of being a spam friendly ISP a little higher, and push the cost of spamming up...
"I'll have a Guinness, no wait, make that a Coors Light" -Grad student I work with, who shall remain anonymous...
Apparently he was sick of it and was not going to take it any more.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
If the spammer is trying to make money, he needs to identify a domestic contact point for the suckers to send it. Make spamming illegal, and the domestic contact point becomes implicated in a crime and can be shut down (POB closed by the postal inspector, credit card frozen, whatever) as soon as the spamming is proved.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Unsubscribing does not work. However, it would be nice if email client could recognize this supposed opt-out statement and categorize the letter as junk mail.
That's so simple it's almost brilliant. There are a few bugs with it, but it's actually not a bad idea.
The main bug: You'd have to either have logic for lists you do want, or only use that particular email account for personal emails
But seriously, checking an email for the word "unsubscribe" (and a few other key ones) as a hyperlink would probably work very well for that variety of spam. Since 99% of people won't send you "unsubscribe" hyperlinked, it solves the problem of knocking out the wrong emails.
Has anybody actually tried this? Sometimes there's brilliance in random musing.
Most spam lists filter out .gov addresses for just that reason. They're not completely stupid.
Unfortunately.
"I will trust Google to 'do no evil' until the founders no longer run it." Hello Alphabet.