Slashdot Mirror
Opting Out Increases Spam?
J. L. Tympanum writes "I used to ignore spam but recently I have been using the opt-out feature. Now I get more spam than ever, especially of the Nigerian scam (and related) types. The latter has gone from almost none to several a day. Was I a fool for opting out? Is my email address being harvested when I opt out? Has anybody had similar experience?"
It *does* show the spammers that the account is active and you're looking at the email...
Is my email address being harvested when I opt out?
Yes.
You've validated to the spammers that your email address is being actively read, and that you actually READ spam. You have confirmed to them that you are an excellent use of their resources.
1984 was not supposed to be an instruction manual.
It has always been my understanding that hitting those opting out links only verifies that your email address is valid.
Thus increasing the amount of spam because a valid email address is worth so much more...
I used to avoid water but recently I have been using the shower. Now I get more wet than ever, especially of the makes-my-skin-pruny (and related) types. The latter has gone from almost none to one or more a week. Was I a fool for taking a shower? Is my skin being harvested when I shower? Has anybody had a similar experience?
If spammers will not honour our private property rights by stealing our bandwidth and mail server ressources, what makes you think that they will honour requests not to be spammed again?
Worse, "opting" out confirms that the e-mail address the spam has be sent to is valid!!!
You never opt-out of spams, you LART their upstreams until they have no more connectivity.
People still fall for this "opt-out" scam? Really?
I thought this was pretty well known and understood by now, especially by Slashdot types.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Is this guy serious?
I would give him the benefit of the doubt if this was circa 1997. But it's 2009, and even the birds on the trees are singing the tune "who tries to opt-out on spam is a fucking fool and deserves to have his e-mail harvested to hell and back". Or some such tune.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I have had the exact same experience with my hotmail account a few years ago. I would get almost no spam. This was great for years with that account. Then one day I got a few spam. I tried the "opt out" option and almost moments later I saw multiple spams coming in. I have not tried it with my gmail or any other account for fear that my spam will double.
Or are you trying to make one of your friends/enemies look dumb?
Do you have ESP?
A better Ask Slashdot question would have been: "how can I forge bounce messages so that they think my email address is invalid?"
Arguing about vi versus Emacs is like arguing whether it's better to make fire by rubbing sticks or banging rocks.
Has anyone explained why opting out is a bad idea yet?
AT&ROFLMAO
How on earth did this make any part of slashdot at all?
Not just that, but you confirmed to the spammers that you were stupid enough to believe something they said. Consider the advice of the great philosophers Mr. T and Nelson.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
It works even better if you include your SSN, DOB, and banking info too.
But if you really want to improve your fortunes, I know this Nigerian Prince that I can put you in contact with.
No no no, it's not a contest at all.
The lame stories are being posted to make you complain, thus verifying who actually reads the articles so they can make a list and sell it.
As someone who does responsible e-mail marketing, please let me make a distinction between that and spamming.
If you are getting notices to enhance your johnson or "Che@p drug$" or whatever, DO NOT use the "opt out" link. It confirms your e-mail address is functional. In fact don't open them at all. Report them as spam and help your ISP improve their filters.
HOWEVER, if you are receiving e-mail marketing you just don't want anymore--like say the daily deal e-mail from Expedia*--please use the opt-out link to cancel your subscription. Deleting them won't stop the flow, and marking them as spam hurts deliverability reputation, making it harder to get them to people who actually want them.
Perhaps I'll get modded down for saying this, but e-mail marketing can be done responsibly and is a big part of many legitimate businesses. I think this sometimes gets lost in the War On Spam.
* I don't work for them, this is just an example of an e-mail marketing that I know I get.
Build a man a fire, he's warm for one night. Set him on fire, and he's warm for the rest of his life.
marketing from an otherwise legitimate company, opting out will work, but for spammers it just makes things worse. Spammers count on two things, that they just need a tiny percentage to respond to their solicitations, and that the rest of us will ignore it. Once a year I make a point of researching the complete header of spam and reporting them to their ISP and any law enforcement agency that has jurisdiction. They are engaged in fraud in the traditional sense of the term, so are violating existing laws. They are counting on the rest of us to just delete them and not lodge a complaint.
Does anybody read any other responses before posting??
How many times has the same answer been given ?!?!
The people that profit from spam, credit card companies, also are a powerful lobby group.
In short, spam isn't going away.
Your contribution eating congress critters will make sure of that.
I ignore spam, but unsubscribe from any other advertisement sent my way. I have also embarked on a campaign to reduce my internet footprint by axing nearly everything I can. (It's impossible, but I still try.) I've gone from a hundred spams a day to less than 10--usually two or three.
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
It's worse when you have a catch-all domain, especially if that domain shares a name with a blockbuster movie about to come out, or is in theaters, or was successful in theaters. It doesn't matter if it's .com, .org, .net, or whatever: spammers will forge under your domain and you'll get the bounce-back, and some of the addresses they spam to will also be spammers. Those spammers will then harvest those addresses and spam them directly, creating a feedback loop that grows so massive that your ISP will disable your server-side filters because they're too busy filtering the incoming spam, forcing you to close your catch-all domain to only those usernames for which you want to receive mail.
And then it will take hours for your ISP to open a new username at that domain instead of the mere seconds to whitelist it yourself, so you might as well register some obscure domain no one would ever want to trademark.
Though you may want to choose a domain that doesn't contain any HTML tag names like "script" or "table" in it. Some sites will strip anything that looks like an HTML tag from your registered e-mail address, leaving you unable to receive your password verification link.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Outlook has a cute little bug associated with IMAP folders and using more than one mail client..... Outlook will send a "The email was not read" read receipt if the email is deleted from the imap folder before you've read it in Outlook... even if you tell Outlook not to send read receipts. This is rather annoying if you routinely use an alternative email to delete your spam. The next time you load Outlook it sends out a load of read receipts to the spam merchants, therefore confirming you (my!) email address.
P.S. Check out:
here,
here,
and
here. It's not just me!
return 0; }
... now you can take up scambaiting as a sport.
If libertarians are so opposed to effective government, why don't they all move to Somalia?
...the correct answer is no answer at all.
Opting out or responding to spammers in any way other than silence or bouncing is asking for trouble.
I have a 10+ year old email account that was used all over the place, and now has the dubious honor of getting well over 100 spams per day (unfiltered). I've recently applied the zen.spamhaus.org RBL and a short list of blacklisted domains and keywords (sorry, Mr. Hoodia, I won't be getting your emails). Applying a proper SPF record to the domain has drastically cut down on the non-deliverable backscatter. A couple of times a year, my email address was used as the reply-to address for an entire block of spam and in those cases I'd get hundreds of bounce messages in the course of a few hours. Now it's down to a few now and then, usually from hotmail.
As for opt-out, the remaining spam comes from what look like legit marketers. I definitely did NOT opt in to their list, but once one crooked spammer sells his "double opt-in email list", you're on it for good. The legit marketers send their mail from different domains, but if the spam has a good SPF record, and the opt-out notice goes to the marketing company and not the domain of the sender, I click on the opt-out link. Incoming mail that fails SPF is rejected. No SPF record and I don't opt out. And after a few weeks, I see a negligible amount of repeat email from these marketers, and overall the incoming spam has been reduced over 90%.
Yeah, and you can find out all about spammers, their tacts, and what they do with opt-out and other ways they confirm active addresses. I know this is big and scary for all of you, but you can even find that out all on your own, yes, just by your little lonesome! How, you ask? With Google! It's not even slightly difficult. If you can read Slashdot you can handle a Google search too.
Yay, look everybody, it's YET ANOTHER Ask Slashdot that should have been an Ask Google. Reminds me of the web site justfuckinggoogleit.com. Yes that's a real site, no it's not a trick. I like how it says on there "the popularity of this site just blows my mind" in their information page. Seriously guys, why does almost every Ask Slashdot have to be something obvious? Trying to "pick everyone's brain" makes sense when there can be multiple creative solutions, not when it's a yes/no question that five seconds with Google would answer definitively.
You can mod me flamebait or troll or whatever because you're a pantywaist and can't handle the sarcastic tone I used. But just try to actually disagree with me, I dare you. I'd like to see you try.