Slashdot Mirror
Online Marketers to Stamp out Spam?
CodeHog writes "A group of online marketers want to get rid of spam and are proposing a registry base system for transmitting email. They are calling the project Lumos. Computer World has an aritcle on it Online marketers offer new antispam initiative
. Doesn't it seem like these are the same businesses that profit from spam? Even better, this is being proposed by ESPC. The member list doesn't look too anti-spam to me." The obvious issue of course is that most spammers won't follow the rules anyway. My spam is up 20% over the 1st quarter of 2003! Yay!
And lets also hand over civil rights to the Klan.
Go calculate something
My spam is up 20% over the 1st quarter of 2003!
So how can I get spam futures into my portfolio? Something going up 20% a quarter is just what the stockbroker ordered!
Terrific idea. I assert that we should also award the power to draft anti-monopoly legistlation to Microsoft Corporation.
I know this is kinda off-topic but I am kinda fired up about it right now. I just got done posting a comment to the Antispamist's Spam Forum about the increasing spamming of my web server logs. I am using a script that displays the recent referrers and it is currently half full of spam. Has anyone else had problems with this? This recent bout seems to stem from one guy
FoundNews.com - get paid to blog.,
I will gladly post my email to a public "do not mail" list. I assume the list will be harvested to "remove" me.
I agree- every time I call Verizon I get a nice message in a soothing voice telling me that they respect my privacy. Yet I know they sell my number to telemarketers because I don't give that number to anyone else but personal friends! Then they will sell me some telemarketing blocking technology, and sell the telemarketers anti-telemarketing technology technology and so forth. I don't see how this email stuff will be different...but then again Im completely jaded.
Kinda like letting the fox guard the chickens. I have feeling this to weed out porn, and "penis enlargement" emails so the marketing companies don't have worry about their spam getting diluted.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Unless SMTP is re-worked to disallow false source addresses, spam is not going to be stopped by a system like this. As long as there is no accountability from the sources of spam, it will continue to be pumped out from overseas. Though projects like PennyBlack and SpamNet are good in concept, the only one that has proven to work is intellegent filtering. Spam filters like Spam Inspector remove around 99% of junk email... You need to have one to make using your e-mail account worth using again...
I couldn't imagine my Yahoo mail without their spam controls... (Unlike Hotmail, which spams you themselves)
According to this artical on PCWorld 1/3 of the email on the internet is spam and the rest is mostly person-to-person communications. http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,105525,0 0.asp
I support anti-spam legisitlation.
No.
Hmm, Guild of Spammers...sounds like something Terry Pratchett might have thought up for the next installment of Ankh-Morpork.
(Couldn't find "spam" in my Latatian dictionary, which also doesn't have a section on how to convert the infinitive to past tense, so "to cook pig" will have to do.)
"The member list doesn't look too anti-spam to me."
That's damn right. It's the Who's Who of spam-for-hire operations. Every single one of them spams. It's just that they claim their spam is not spam.
Proletariat of the world, unite to kill spammers. Remember to shoot the knees first, so that they can't run away while you slowly torture them to death.
In Soviet Russia, I ruled you
Now I'll have to figure out somewhere else to get my Blue Pills. I guess I've have to make an embarrassing trip to the doctor's office. Dang ;)
[wildstar] # sh /etc/init.d/sendmail stop
-- Thou hast strayed far from the path of the Avatar.
Consider the movie ratings system. It's not in any way government regulated; it's run entirely by the Motion Picture Association of America. Whatever disputes I have with their policies and practices, you have to admit, the industry has been fairly successful at eliminating the need for government regulation through self-regulation.
It sounds more like these spammers are getting together to find a way to continue sending requested marketing email. Spam has gotten so bad that the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater at the ISP level, before the consumer even implements their own filters. They're afraid of losing the ability to market via e-mail *period*, so they've come up with a way to screen it.
If it actually works as they claim (in terms of unsubscribe rules, identifiability, and so forth) it might be a way ISPs could filter out commercial email that *doesn't* conform to this protocol, while still allowing commercial email to happen.
I'm not saying I think it will (or won't) work, but I think this is probably a sincere attempt to regulate commercial email in a manner that will be acceptable to consumers.
Don't you wish your girlfriend was a geek like me?
A number of people here have mentioned the extremely low response rate to spam. This is what allows it to survive. Imagine if their response rate went up something like 5000%, but 99% of those were fake, but realistic responses. This would *instantly* kill the profit motive. More staff will be required to process the fake orders/replies, and they'll have a devil of a time weeking out the true from the false responses. Eventually, the profitability scale will tip, and that is when spam will end. No program, list or change in technology is going to stop spam until everyone stands up and gives it right back to them.
IAAL
Their idea, which boils down to a giant opt-out list of email addresses, impresses me not. If they proposed a giant opt-in list, I'd be a bit more excited. Of course, nobody would sign up ... I can't imagine too many email Oliver Twists out there saying "Please sir, may I have some more [spam]?"
And would you entrust your email address under any circumstances to an organization who's entire business is sending marketing email?
Just because you get an email from one of these companies in your inbox doesn't automatically quantify it as spam.
:-P
/. ??? The classic "(insert name here) is trying to take our rights away and make money off of us and they suck. Open source forever and Linus rules my world and does email suck so much when blogging is the communication method of the future".
God forbid that you, as an individual, forget to uncheck a box when you bought your last DVD or CD or book or whatever online. God forbid that you own up to your own impatience and your click click click lifestyle that results in you glazing over or not even caring about the terms and conditions of your latest purchase.
Does it suck that it's so easy to get signed up for some mailing lists? Absolutely. But you know what? The fact remains that even if you make it as easy as possible and have DOUBLE-opt-IN mailing lists, it's inevitable that someone will complain and accuse you of spamming them. It's human nature. I know from experience.
Are there shady companies scouring around for email addresses? Sure, but any established company with a decent bankroll, employees, investors, would NEVER stoop to such levels - it's too much of a risk. You wouldn't believe the legal mumbo-jumbo I have to go through just to send out my monthly newsletters - and I'm not even considering myself one of those "established companies". All conspiracy theories and "Well I had a bad time with..." experiences aside, as a majority, companies DO respect your wishes when it comes to receiving email - they DO respect your wishes to keep your address private - and they DO make sure that you're happy with the way you're treated. They have too much at stake to behave like children and rebels when it comes to mailing you.
Like a number of other issues bouncing around this world today, the SPAM problem seems to have taken on a life of its own. Everyone's all about jumping on the anti-SPAM bandwagon and complaining on message boards about "The Man" and his itchy SMTP trigger finger. Is spam annoying? Sure. I'll be the first to say that something really needs to be done about all the huge penis emails I get every day - I'm fine with my super-python - leave me alone already!!!
Well you know what? These people that do email for a living ARE trying to do something about it and what do we hear on
These companies know that they need email to survive, and so they're making sure that classic penis/Viagra/Nigeria spam doesn't give them a bad name. Pure and simple. You should be glad that something like this is happening. It might not cut down on the solicitations you get in your email, but at least all those ads will be for things you like, or have signed up for. Ever wonder why you don't see commercials for Gerritol & Depends on Cartoon Network at 2:00am? No old people are up watching it because the advertisers have a well-defined and mature methodology of knowing where and how to promote their products on TV and they don't have to worry about their audience getting annoyed by ads for things that they don't want.
Marketing and advertising is here to stay for good, people - it's everywhere, including email. Even if this plan isn't perfect, we should at least be applauding someone for doing something proactively about the issue instead of reactively. Not all ads are "evil". Spam sucks, targeted marketing about things I'M interested in is welcome - if there's no easy way to filter out the good from the bad everyone loses.
However, they don't show any sign of being willing to bite the bullet and accept a pure Opt-In model -- which is the only way they can avoid the name "spammer".
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
As the owner of several domain names I am now facing the problem from 2 angles -
That of me receiving SPAM to my personal email account(s), _AND_ that of my domain names being used in the from/reply-to addresses of SPAM email.
The latter I actually find more frustrating. What makes it worse is my domain name is being used in HTML emails - your average [l]user has no idea that it is HTML, and in the message body sees only "EXTEND YOUR PENIS NATURALLY CLICK HERE" in big bright purple letters. The fact that the link goes to http://www.iamascumbagspammer.com/ is not apparent - what they do see however is my domain name in the from line of their email client.
I actually think that the we would be better off if the anti-spammers stopped pursuing their cause and just let spam take out the Internet's email system.
Then we can start again from scratch.
Surely SMTP's time is up.
A while back I was a bit busy so I stopped checking my home email regularly. As I was getting over a hundred spams a day, it was quickly mounting up. A couple of times I sat there and deleted 500 or so, looking carefully for anything from friends and family. Just over a month ago I was overwhelmed. I got 127 today, so now I have 5521 messages in my inbox. That email account is basically fucked. I have no idea if there are any legitimate emails in there. Fucking spammers. Hanging, drawing and quartering is too good for them.
Hello,
You may have seen this business before and
ignored it. I know I did - many times! However,
please take a few moments to read this letter.
I was amazed when the profit potential of this
business finally sunk in... and it works!
With easy-to-use e-mail tools and opt-in e-mail,
success in this business is now fast, easy and
well within the capabilities of ordinary people
who know little about internet marketing. And the
earnings potential is truly staggering!
Send me $25 and I'll send you the tools.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
New email registries will decrease spam? Set up by online marketers? No, sorry, I don't buy that at all. Remember what their interests are. The problem at hand is... most spammers don't care about creating inconveniences. They are like greedy undisciplined children, and won't stop spamming unless they are forced to (by law, vigilante retaliation, etc.)
.procmailrc and uses a Bayesian scoring type of approach. It's a user-level solution which requires some training, but once it's accurate it's quite amazing. Currently it's missing only 3% of my incoming spam.
To say something constructive now. There are two neat server side spam filtering projects I really like because neither uses IP-based blacklists (blacklists can bring a lot of collateral damage and require frequent judgement calls).
Spamprobe can be run from
The Distributed Checksum Clearinghouse also runs server side and uses fuzzy checksums to identify mail that is being received by a suspiciously large number of mail hosts around the world. A brilliant idea which works better than you may think. I have never seen a false positive with this system, and it misses about 1/4 of incoming spam. Effectiveness will improve as more hosts join the distributed checksum system!
These turkeys just want to keep out their competitors. Shemes to add intelligence to the internet are all designed to make it imposible for any but a select few to send the adverts. They seek legitmacy and government protection for their abuse of a public network. That's not something I'm willing to give up my ability to run a mail server for. Nor do I wish for my ISP to be forced to pay fees for the new service which will garantee spam forever.
So called "accountability" schemes to rework mail protocal are equally evil. The 1:1 network of copper wires known as the telephone system is abused all day long.
The answer is to simply outlaw these obnoxious practices. Unsolicited comercial calls are abuses of public networks and should not be tollerated. People who would abuse their neighbors this way should be fined and put in jail.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
The ESPC website also has a box where you can add your email address and receive "information" from them about the ESPC itself, which I would *ahem* not recomend. ;-)
Thanks to Seth Godin, spammers had a year or two where they could claim legitimacy by including an unsubscribe button at the end of the message (the popup that you put on the unsubscribe page often pays for the spam.)
Now that people know the unsubscribe button is a ruse, it no longer buys legitimacy. Making a big national unsubscribe service that is trusted will give the email marketers another year or two of legitimacy.
The funny thing. Spammers themselves tend to hate spam. I should say, they hate the spam sent by competing spam shops. The competing spam dilutes the audience. They especially hate new spam shops. As a result, most would agree to proposals that reduce the over amount of spam...so long as they don't lose their share of the market.
I wouldn't be surprised to see existing spam shops try and form mechanisms that reduced spam, and closed the market to new comers. It would buy legitimacy and preserve their share of the market at a reduced cost.
Of course, the emarketers are in a tight situation...they know the other people in the group are emarketers looking for any advantage and that they cannot be trusted.
Drug dealers only make their high profits *because* of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The DEA restricts supply to the U.S., thereby increasing prices and taking out the "little guys". Generally, when the DEA gets a tip, it's from a rival drug lord.
It's the same with this SPAM thing. They want fewer "little guys" around so they try to force the supply of SPAM down which increases the effectiveness of their own SPAM. Not altruistic by any means, but if it lands fewer junk emails in my box each day, it's fine by me.
Social scientists are inspired by theories; scientists are humbled by facts.