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E-gift Certificates = Spam?

Posted by timothy on from the another-spam-abcess dept.

vincewazalooski writes "Good read in NY Times Circuits section today about how spam filters at Hotmail, Yahoo, etc. often interpret gift certificates from Amazon et. al. as spam. Worst part is, you might send a gift cert to someone, they never get it and you never know."

3 of 25 comments (clear)

  1. Don't delete spam... by Atzanteol · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This is exactly why my spam filters (spamassasin) don't delete my suspected spam, just move them to a separate folder that I check occasionally. You can never be *sure* that your filter(s) are working perfectly.

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    "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"

    - Charles Darwin
  2. because.... by frotty · · Score: 1, Insightful

    in soviet russia, gifts give you!

    no, really, they do...

    Giving money out is impersonal. Giving a gift certificate at least gives some hint that you know and care about what the person wants.

    Giving a gift isn't necessarily some consumer strategized targeting of your "friend units" in order to stimulate "maximum happiness" growth kinesis.

    I'd rather give someone a clump of my own waste as a present than hand them, essentially, purely what I worked for: power units.

    A family member giving cash is different - it's like 'pooling the resources for the empire'...

    the only exception i make to giving cash is when its a pooled effort from people who don't know each other. Usually that involves a predicated event: "GIVE ME CASH" or distance: long lost auntie mysteria doesn't know what else to do...

    so rather than 20 people buying you a $10 CD (or gift certificate) they can all give you cash, you can buy your $200 present, and you can send 'em all a photo of yourself with it saying a polite version of "boo-yeah!"

    But yeah, here's $20 dude is bottom of the totem of "buying a gift > gift certificate > money" ...be sure to include the receipt with the gift!

    --
    -- The truth is the only thing that nobody will believe.
  3. Purposeful restriction. by Inoshiro · · Score: 3, Insightful

    If I give little Johnny 80$, he might go buy Vice City. If I give little Johnny 80$ at CD Hut, little Johnny can get 80$ of CDs -- no Vice City.

    --
    --
    Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.