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Microsoft Offers Tools to Spamming ISPs
Michael writes "Computer Business Review reports that 'Internet service providers curious to know how much spam they are sending Hotmail users will be able to get detailed reports on the topic, courtesy of a service Microsoft launched in beta yesterday.' Microsoft's new Smart Network Data Services, a part of the larger MSN Portmaster initiative, allows the owners of IP blocks to view reports on the volume of email being sent from their networks to Hotmail users, and see how much of that email is being flagged as spam."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Now if they could only tell how much spam is coming from hotmail accounts...
To understand recursion,
you must first understand recursion.
Fix windows and we will have less spam zombies. It's a bit late to close the barn door once the horse has bolted.
I like muppets.
And shame the ISPs into sorting the problems?
Deleted
Internet service providers curious to know how much spam they are sending Hotmail users, please raise your hands...
ummmm.. I dont see any.. Seriously, if ISP's were THAT concerned about the amount of spam their clients are generating, I wouldnt have to worry about spam, in the first place...
Nope, but their customers might want to know how effective the SPAM tactics are working.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
Even better. If you are a spammer, this gives you the most useful data ever: how much of my spam is actually being recognized as spam? I'd want my spam messages to be so clever or so interesting that users don't readily figure out that it's spam.
Of course, I'm not a spammer, and few who stoop to such pathetic marketing tactics would think enough to craft a message that ( to a person ) in not easily recognizable as spam, so I guess you have a point.
"will the ISP's sending most of the spam care?"
They should care. If everyone was to reduce the amount of spam they are sending, then this will in turn reduce the amount of spam they are receiving and having to filter out. Creating less total spam and making each ISP's customers happier. These reports should also help in determining the zombies that they are currently serving and allow them to contact or 'pull the plug' on these customers.
If I am correct, Hotmail email addresses generate the most spam on the internet, or at least have in the past. Whether this is because they have such a large user base or the security flaws aforementioned is debatable, but irrespective of this fact, accountability should be encouraged at all levels of the spamming process, from creation to transmission.
Or maybe it's because spammers are forging the return addresses and they don't come from hotmail at all.
I realize that this may sound impossible to /. users, but maybe this tool could be useful to non-spammers. For example, perhaps a business that sends out newsletters to customers wishes to see how many of its customers are marking the newsletters as spam. If a lot of people mark the newsletters as spam, perhaps it is time to a) change the format of the newsletter, b) make it easier and more clear how to stop receiving the newsletters, or c) stop sending newsletters.
Great civilizations have lived and died on false theories. Don't mess up mine with a few facts.
And the problem, as the GP post pointed out, is that folks will even mark those confirmation requests as spam...not much a legit list can do in that case, except talk to the ISP, but you have to know it's happening first.