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Secret Spam Summit Held in Washington DC
CuriousGeorge113 writes "Apparently The Coalition Against Unsolicited Commercial E-mail
(Cauce) held a secret meeting in
Washington with the Direct Marketing Association (DMA)
to try and convince the DMA to stop spamming. It's a pretty
interesting Article at Salon." The DMA seems to like spam and thinks you should too, just like you love all the junk dead-treee mail its members send you. Such a surprise!
If it made it on Slashdot, I don't think it's all that secret anymore...
That should be a marketing campaign slogan to be used by Cauce in their fight against this crap. I don't even begin to look at spam. So if they DMA thinks it's working I don't know they think is looking at that email, but in another light they wouldn't be doing it on such a mass scale if someone wasn't looking at those sites and emails.
Good is never enough, when you dream of being great!
As well the much mentioned "Spam costs the recipient, junk snail mail costs the sender", the main difference I see between postal junkmail and Spam is the relevance of the material. Apart from "opt in" mailings (to which I have no objection, otherwise I would not have opted in) from companies with whom I have had contact, all of the mass emailings I receive fall into one of 3 types - either selling email addresses (or Spam softare), adverts for porn sites or "get rich quick" scams. None of which I want to receive. The DMA say about small companies needing to send out details, but I certainly have never received that type of Spam - and as long as it was reasonably targetted (eg not restricted to US residents but sent worldwide, and for a product or service that I might be interested in) would not be so bad as the current Spam.
...I've found that almost all junk mail comes with a business reply envelope. That envelope guarantees that the company sending you the mail will pay postage on any mail sent back to them using the envelope. (That's step one.)
The USPS will send any package that weighs up to or under 70 pounds. (Step two)
Any brand of tape or glue will allow you to stick the business reply envelope to a large cardboard box which can then be filled with rubbish--my personal favorite is scraps of sheetrock--just keep it under 70 pounds. (Step three)
Remember to make sure that you name appears prominently on the package. This lets them know to whom they should send the next invitation for pounds of rubbish. Sadly, most of the folks I've done this to have neglected to send me a second invitation. (Step four)
Try this at home, but be sure to ask for Mom's and Dad's permission.
(A slighly less arduous version has me ripping up whatever was sent and mailing that back inside the envelope. It's easier but nowhere near as fun.)
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
I am a minor, therefore wouldnt spamming me be illegal?
Take for instance, the other day i was sent a spam. This spam wanted me to either buy a product or visit an inappropriate website. That HAS to be illegal.
icq:=22921393;
Well, I'll send them 10 copies every time I get spam, I think everyone should too. Let us see if they like that...
We have to make it unprofitable to spam. Here are my suggestions:
ISPs:
These steps would prevent the small time spammers from "whack-a-mole" spamming. Those 20 bites I mentioned wouldn't begin to pay for $10000, the hassle of bill collectors hammering on your door, etc.
Linux/BSD distro makers:
Much of the spam I get is relayed through poorly configured Linux/BSD setups.
My fellow Geeks:
NAIL THE SPAMMERS!
If the spammers find that "send spam, lose website" it the law of the land, then it becomes costly to send spam, and the spam will dry up.
Now, I know what many of you are saying: if ISPs start requiring you to use their mailer, how will all of us Unixen use our local sendmail to handle mail. Simple: configure your mailer to forward the mail to your ISP!
Laws are not the way to end spam, we have to make it not worth the spammers while. We can do this (just look at how effective the RBL is, and how well Spamford Wallace was forced to change his tactics.)
Now, if you will excuse me, I must put on my Nomex firesuit.
Flame on!
www.eFax.com are spammers
Thank you for your information. I will spread this to more deviants against this horrible system that we call capitalism.
--
Anonymous Coward
"In capitalism, man exploits man. In socialism, it's exactly the opposite." --Ben Tucker
Normally, I think that I'm a pretty reasonable person, but the notion that the gov't should step in with more regulation of the internet and that bad behavior by marketing slimeballs should be the reason is so completely offensive to me that I find I must agree with the Lumber Cartel approach.
I receive hundreds of emails on a typical day. Probably 95% of these are legitimate, non-spam. While it's easy to "just say delete", I still waste time dealing with the 5% of my email that is spam; not only do these Ponzi scheme salesman disregard my privacy, they have become increasingly clever at camouflaging their subject lines and sender names making it more difficult to delete without opening the mail and reading it to determine if it is legit (also validating the theory that they do, in fact, possess a rudimentary intelligence, perhaps on the order of that of an insect). Over time, this waste adds up (and is merely the wasted time of one person. Add this to the financial burden on infrastructure created by these idiots, and it's clear DMA users are free-riding pond scum).
Asking the gov't for help is going to open a can of worms, and unlikely to result in any useful regulation anyway. Does anyone really think that the voices and votes of those who are pissed off by spam will have any weight against the $$ of lobbying groups paid for by DMA and its members? I don't. The result of any regulation would likely still allow spam to be sent under a set of conditions that would broaden each time the regulations were revisited (which would be like voting in Chicago: early and often).
The DMA and its members understand one thing: profit. As long as they can externalize the bulk of the costs of their activities onto the voiceless entity in the middle (the ISP) and the typical, relatively powerless recipient, there is no incentive for them to stop. But the notion that time is money is a double-edged sword (how is that for a mixed metaphor?). Since neither the ISP's nor the gov't is likely to force DMA and its members to bear the true cost of their activities, perhaps the more technologically savvy among DMA's victim/recipients should do so (without violating any laws, of course). If it is legal for DMA to disregard recipient preferences and send unsolicited email until told to stop, then why should it be illegal or immoral for others to do the same to DMA executives and employees?
There is NO POINT in meeting with these people. As a sysadmin that has to deal with spammers and associated scum every single day I can TELL you that these dishonest liars we affectionatly know as spammers don't have a single particle of conscience for what they do. They abuse other people's resources and then expect you to LIKE it.
Recently on the spamtools-list it was revealed that these idiots have their own 'secret' mailing list. It was mirrored somewhere..it wasn't any shock to me to see the names of the biggest net.kooks on that mailing list however.
Nothing will change these people. They have such a twisted view of reality that they think they are preserving freedom of speech by spamming.
Have ISP's require that you approve all email addresses that want to mail you before you get messages from them. Maybe something like the list servers (where it's automated and all ISP email addresses are approved by default). I might write a program like this if I have time.
:)
On the other hand it might be annoying to approve each user from a mailing list, but there might be a mailing list option for each address (for linux-kernel
And of corse, if someone approved gives you crap, there should be a way to block them via email.
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
First I want to state something: I Hate Spam I used to be a fierce anti-spammer. Now, I'm more flexible... In a civiliced society, unsolicited mail should be clearly marked so the "potential" customer could choose to open it or dump it. In our society that doesn't happen. What's more likely to happen in our society is that, when one regulation forbids or regulates some kind of communication, then ANY kind of communication can be forbidden. I don't want nobody telling me what I can mail, so I will forgive those ugly spammers, tighten my filters and continue living. Regulations usually fuck up people's rights... (But a "spam" tag in the headers of mails would be great...isn't it?)
If you send a used diaper, it would be giving them a message as to what their mailing is!
Mattel still retaliates against injured geek!
Because of amazon.com's habit of spamming, I quit doing business with them. Same with Adobe, Travelocity and Rand Worldwide.
Giving folks a chance to repent of their spamming works. (Cyberian) Outpost and Fatbrain were pretty cool when I sent mail objecting to their spam - and they quit, so I got to retain them as suppliers.
The fiscal wrench is the only tool that works against spammers.
We might also consider borrowing a principle from supply side economics to reduce obnoxious marketing tactics. Supply siders say when you tax something, like income, you get less of it. I suggest we tax obnoxious marketing tactics (billboards, telemarketing, junk mail) by eliminating or restricting the deductibility of marketing expenses as a business a business expense...
[reality check]
Nobody buys stuff when its displayed as an unsolicited irritation. SPAM from either the acutal mail or E-Mail drives customers away from the spammers products. You are wasting your time. I have never met a person who bought something from a SPAM E-Mail, and I'm sure I never will.
Now I know people are going to give me crap about things like "What about television commercials! Those are SPAM too!" Well they aren't. You can change the channel during commercial breaks. Now you say "but you can just delete those SPAMS". Well, it would be a one thing if I got SPAM from the ford motor company, but most of the spam I get is pornography, and I have almost been fired because data protection at a company I worked for was wondering why I was getting E-Mail from 'lesbianlove@sexbot.com' or something. Now I'm not saying pornography is wrong, its just not supposed to be in my E-Mail when I don't want it to. I could have easily been an 8 or 9 year-old checking my E-Mail.
You guys forgot rule number 1 of marketing:
DON'T PISS OFF YOUR CUSTOMERS!
[/reality check]
They are composed of and funded by companies that make money from SPAM! They are a voluntary organization, if the company does not like their position, the company can leave.
The only way to stop spam is to provide LEGAL penalties for company that spam (on a federal level) and provide for statutory damages, so that they would have to pay without a showing of actual damages. Set it up so, the corporate veil is pierced. Then each time they send it, it will cost them lots of money! Requiring the registration companies to handle the responses for SPAMMER will help
Mattel still retaliates against injured geek!
I think it's like tv: we buy the tv, we pay for the cable, we pay electricity. And we have to 'download' all the comercials they put between the shows. On a 23 munites show, I have to waste 7 more minutes of comercials. Sure, I don't want the commercials, but that's what pays for the free show I'm watching. If the show was 7 minutes, with 23 minutes of commercials, nobody would watch it (I'm not talking about those shows that are _about_ comercials
So, I that the fact that we have spam proves that spam is prove that it works (sure, spam is cheaper, but there would be no companies selling lists of "100000000000000 non aol e-mails")
Of course I hate spam, and I'd like to, at least, not get spam about thinks I don't care (I'm young, I don't want to "buy viagra on-line".. or "get a free newsletter".. like I'd pay for spam :), or maybe some header, so I can filter it out.. But it pays for a lot of free services out there (actually, what would be of the Internet without porn?)..
--
Stay tuned for some shock and awe coming right up after this messages!
Spam is NOT about freedom of communication. That is EXACTLY what these wankers want you to believe.
1) Spam costs the END USER, not the sender. It is akin to junk fax, which _IS_ illegal. Why is no one complaining about the so-called 'right' to junk fax people?
2) Does so-called freedom of speech give me the right to stand on the corner with a bullhorn and drown out everyone else's communications? (taken from USENET)
I can't understand why anyone would want to hold a conference on Spam. When I was very poor, I had to eat spam almost everyday. It was gross! I looked at the ingredients and found out that it contains all of the disposed parts of animals that can't be sold separately. Sure, you may find ways at a summit to couch it in all sorts of coverup flavors, textures, or colors, but spam is spam and shouldn't be fed to any animals, even geeks.
Perusing their Web site, it looks like one of the two following email addresses would be appropriate for this: consumer@the-dma.org and pr@the-dma.org.
Hmm, just a while ago a slashdot article about spam reminded me of looking at my own situation. I receive a lot of spam, mainly due to the fact that I once signed many guestbooks (those were the times when I thought you could leave your uncoded e-mail address around without receiving thousands of spam mails) and this made me take a look round the net for some methods against this (I was already using a procmail filter to cut out possible spam).
Anyways, so I came across brightmail. It is, indeed, pretty damn good. It's basically a POP-filter that acts as a proxy between you and your POP server and filters out SPAM. The spam mails are kept for 30 days and can be retrieved through some HTTPS interface. Now, I haven't received any spam in the past three days (it's already filtered out numerous messages). And I'm happy :). You might wanna try it.
Note: no, I don't work for Brightmail or have any kind of relation to them other than using their service.
I've been forwarding my spam to my congressman for about six months now. This way I know that his staff (at least) have the benefits touted by the DMA to go along with the bribes the DMA will be passing out. Uh, did I say bribes? I meant "campaign contributions." Anyway, I strongly recomend this approach . . . some legislation is needed to curb the spammers and none is going to happen unless congress feels the effect of spam personally. And I doubt very much that spammers include congressional addresses in their lists. If your congressman is like mine, his computer will send you a nice "thank you" for your interest. You will know that this is a nice personal communication since it will probably be for some particularily interesting porn.
I'll agree with you that freedom is the best choice. It negates the need for bloated, corruption-prone government bureaucracies. But I'm counting on some politician somewhere to attempt to "do something" about the spam problem. Maybe expand the Eschelon charter. Why do I count on this? Because most people are sheep-look at the calls for more gun control after every statistically insignificant mass shooting. And the American population will be increasingly "ensheepened" as technology advances, thereby decreasing our perceived security.
Who has any statistics or relevant experience with the Washington State laws that were passed to protect citizens from unwanted emails? I moved away from Washington State just before they enacted such legislation, and I've heard only a couple anecdotes of the aftermath.
A San Jose ISP (a2i)'s approach to "aiding" spammers figure out if recipient is a Washington citizen or not. Upshot: make it possible, make it consensual to the account holder, make it entirely too cumbersome for the spammer.
The same ISP gave a link to one service/sig on the issue: www.wa-state-resident.com
[
Just to clarify some things that aren't obvious until you read the Salon story.
This "secret" meeting actually happened last year. It was only secret until it actually happened, and the news of it were made public a long time ago.
What the issue is here is that the DMA made a number of agreements and concessions at that meeting, and what the Salon story is talking about is that they are now backpedaling on their agreements. This made the news after several of the participants of that meeting made a number of high-profile announcement calling the DMA on the carpet to account for their lies.
Basically, the upshot of this is that now we have a proven track record of the DMA being nothing but a pack of liars and skunks. That's a pretty direct way of putting it, without mincing words.
So, we can now proceed without any doubt whatsoever on that account. We know what they are after, we know what they want, we know what they will going to do.
And, we'll stop them. Actually, to be technically correct: they'll be stopped. The DMA is making a big mistake thinking that they can bully us in our E-mailboxes the same way that they can bully us in our postal mailboxes and in our telephones. The DMA fails to understand a key difference between the Internet, and postal or telephone marketing. On the Internet, we do excersize some level of control on our mailboxes and on our portions of the network.
We are completely powerless to prevent anyone from stuffing our mailboxes with crap mail, and there's very little that can be done to block telemarketing calls.
However, a LOT can be done to block unwanted and unsolicited junk E-mail from filling our mailboxes. Depending on the tools that are available, you can do a pretty good job at filtering out unwanted crap from your E-mailbox. The DMA is going to wake up one day and act surprised when half the Internet suddenly blacklisted every DMA member that decided to start spamming everyone else's mailbox. The DMA is going to stomp their feet and make a huge temper tantrum, which, of course, will change absolutely nothing. And, that's all that they'll be able to do. The DMA simply hasn't been faced with the situation where the consumer can effectively fight back and defend his privacy. We tried to tell them that they will have to respect our privacy when it comes to our E-mailboxes. Well, folks, the DMA doesn't want to listen to us, so, we'll just have to show them and explain to the the facts of life, and go ahead and reconfigure our routers and mail servers to eliminate all presence of the DMA from the Internet, from our collective point of view.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
--
That should be a marketing campaign slogan to be used by Cauce in their fight against this crap.
*Absolutely NOT!* You should NOT, i repeat NOT just delete spam. That way, it will be just as with paper-spam in your mailbox. You just throw it away, you don't look at it. And worse -- you pay for it.
When you receive spam, you should *read the headers* (smtp-headers) of the spam, trace it back to its origin, and COMPLAIN, COMPLAIN and COMPLAIN. First to the open mailservers along the path, then to the originating ISP / webhotell, and then to the ISP / webhotells *upstream*.
That way, you'll make sure they are closed down and out of business. At least for a short period of time. Spammers should be *harassed*. One should do ones very best to make their lives miserable. !
--
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
Anybody got a list of DMA members, then we'll just make a list of their domains and disallow them.
-- Andreas
This is a great idea! I see two big complications to it as presented above, though:
1) What assurace would the spam producers have that the mail they sent is read? Would there be multiple-choice questions at the bottom which a reader would have to answer as "proof"?
2) Though at some point it's all beans, the idea of populating several millions of accounts with a few pennies seems to my (uninformed) mind pretty daunting. And there would have to be pretty good security checks as well
What I'd like to see is a system like the one cruise proposes, but with a catch: the amount to be desposited in order to make something worth reading ought to be determined not by decree (a min. per K or whatever) but by the recipient. If your time is worth $100 or more an hour, spam had better be worth a few bucks in order to spend even 30 seconds scanning it. If you make $6.25 / hr at the local retail store after school, you might be willing to scan spam all day at a slight improvement to that figure.
So when you sign up for the Spamolicious Account, you could specify areas of interest and how much money you'd need to be bothered with it.
Real Soon Now
timothy
p.s. One thing to note is that many people *have* granted permission to at least one breed of spammer, which is the one using purchased lists compiled from all the places which have asked you for an email address in order to (for instance) "send you important updates" and say in the fine print that the info may be provided to other "fine" merchants
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Subject: Unsolicited Commercial Email (Aka: "SPAM")
Cc: pr@the-dma.org
Dear DMA,
It has come to my attention that your organization seems to believe
that Unsolicited Commercial Email (aka: "UCE", "junk-email", "spam") is
a perfectly legitimate marketing tool.
Since your organization seems to be having trouble getting the point,
allow me to put it in clear and unmistakable terms: I do not accept the
legitimacy of UCE for any purpose. It is my intention to do whatever I
have to, as an individual and as a Corporate Systems and Network
Administrator, to abate this problem. If your organization is
unwilling to cooperate in this effort, and the problem is not somehow
otherwise abated, I will join efforts already in progress to promote
U.S. Government regulation. It's your choice: police yourselves or be
policed.
In the mean-time: since your organization would appear to feel that
spam is such a fine thing, may I assume you won't mind receiving copies
of all that I receive from the junk emailers whose tactics you're
defending? In keeping with your beliefs: I will assume that a failure
to object (opt-out) indicates tacit approval.
This seems so simple that I am sure someone has already suggested it (and I apologize if someone has). Simply require that Mass Marketers include an identifier (e.g. "UNSOLICITED") in the Subject Line of the email. Then people who don't want to receive the Junk can filter it out. Those who do want it can still receive it.
That's why you're the judge and I'm the...uh...law-talkin' guy. - Lionel Hutz, Attorney at Law
Both spammers and Dead Tree spammers are doing the same thing. They are jamming my mailbox (both physical and cyber) with thier junk. I would like to see a movement to get the DTSPAM folks to pay a legitimate postage on the junk they send. I'd even be resonable and make them pay the postcard rate for each 2 oz peice they send. However, the PO lets them off without paying a fraction of that and sticks the 1st class customer with the bill and with trying to sift his bills out of the mess they dump in the box. I just wish there was some similar way to get at SPAM spewers.
Actually, that does NOT solve the problem at all. The reason why spam is bad is not only because it wastes your time, as some people think, but also that it takes *resources from the network* in order to be sent.
A conventional junk-emailer is always limited, to a certain extent, by the costs of printing his ads. On the net, OTOH, sending 2 millions of emails is just a bit more costly than sending 1 million.
Imagine that everybody starts doing that: spammer A sends 1 million mails; spammer B, not wanting to be outnumbered, sends 2 million; spammer C sends 5 millions...
What would happen in a matter of weeks? If your mailbox wasn't clogged with 200 millions of "UNSOLICITED-REMOVE IF NOT INTERESTED" mails, it would be probably because the Internet would have collapsed before.
That is why, when explaining spam, it makes more sense to compare it to the waste of natural resources in the real world (somebody abusing a resource that belongs to the public, that is, to all of us), rather than getting stuck in the "free speech" argument.
Is it because people have to "pay" for it by connecting to their ISP? Spam usually is not that big. Even if there are 20 of them, that's what, like, 30k of information?
The thing that bugs me, is that people who are so *against* spam says it costs users way to much to read it. Well, what about junk mail?? I don't see people getting in an uproar about traditional paper junk mail!
What's that? You don't have to pay for junk mail? Balogna!! You don't think that Land's End or Sharper Image adds that into the cost of their products? Bullhonkey!
I *love* it! I subscribe to several magazines and each of them comes jammed with at least 5 business-reply mail cards offering me a subscription to their magazine. Why they have to put these in a magazine that already has a subscriber is beyond me.
The tactic I use is to write NO in big, black letters and mail the cards back to them. During a summer stint as a desk clerk in a college dorm I used to flip through hundreds of magazines a month, and I would sit there and mechnically write NO on the cards and drop them in our outbound mail box.
Even more fun is to print out labels with your choice of messages/pictures and stick 'em on the cards.
Call me a commie if you want, at least I'll be the commie who's not receiving shit in my mailbox.
- A.P.
--
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
One day, about two years ago, I received one spam too many, and ended up writing a self-righteous screed, which some of you may find entertaining, which I called The Anti Spam Manifesto. It is, alas, completely fictional. But don't tell the spammers that...
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
I'm not a violent person but if I ever met anyone in person that was responsible for spamming millions of mailadresss or someone responsible for "selling" mailadresses I would probably do something to them.
They are really the scum of the Internet and should be punished somehow. Unfortunatly the laws havn't been updated yet but this has to be made illegal. If you consider spamming "free speach" them f-ck "free speach".
I've been playing with filters in Netscape mail. I finally noticed that 99% of the spam I get is not even addressed to ME. (Maybe someone can explain how that works.) So, I made a single filter that requires my E-mail address to be in the "To:" field. It's a beautiful thing!
Every time you get a spam, forward it to
president@the-dma.org
No man is an island, But if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie them together, they make a pretty good raft.
Except one out of a million will buy your product if you advertise with spam.
I'm afraid that's wrong. I'm afraid one in one hundred falls for spam -- either by visiting the website advertised, or by buying the product.
Sorry mate, people are stupid.
--
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
Sendmail, to its credit, has become much more spam-aware in its latest incarnations, It will no longer allow relaying by default, among other preventative measures taken.
:(
Unfortunately there are still plenty of people out there running ancient versions.
Simply require that Mass Marketers include an identifier (e.g. "UNSOLICITED") in the Subject Line of the email.
FYI: The Internet is a worldwide network. Every country on the face of this freaking earth had to agree with you for it too work.
Furthermore, it still ads strain to mailservers. It ads strain to your internet connection (your programs have to know what they filter), and so forth. I'm NOT willing to pay for those spamming dickheads.
--
"Rune Kristian Viken" - http://www.nwo.no - arca
For God's sake don't get the government involved. They're like the proverbial camel's nose in the tent. The government wants to run your whole life anyway. Dont' let them. Don't send flames either. Flamers are worse than spammers. While I don't mind some spam, if you don't want it, you shouldn't get it. Spam IS free speech. Hoever, the constitution does NOT require you to listen to anyone's free speech. I'm a SysAdmin for an ISP. Our dialup clients are instructed to let us know if they are getting unwanted spam. I then send one message to the owner of the offending subnet telling them I will filter out the entire subnet if any of their clients send one more spam email to my subnet(s). It works. If your ISP won't do this for you, change ISP's. Eric F
A number of the replies have suggested boycotting or blocking all of the members of the DMA.
This would be a serious case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It is unlikely that each and every member company was consulted before these statements were made, and there's little doubt some of _them_ were stunned by the backpedaling, as even the article makes clear.
Before taking drastic action against individual member companies, give them some time to chastise the DMA themselves, and distance themselves from the organization if they can't bring about change.
Any solution that's based on "opt-out" is a cop-out for the DMA.
To the DMA, whose PR reps are likely monitoring this site: I hereby invite you to tongue my loins while I perform bestial abominations upon both their members and upon the horses they rode in on. You had your chance - we negotiated peacefully with you - and you reneged. Now be prepared to suffer the same fate as that of the chickenboner Make-Money-Fast pyramid suckers. Your members' accounts and web sites will be deleted by your upstream providers following storms of abuse reports. Your members will lose money hand over fist sending packets into nowhere as individual system administrators choose to block them at the router level. Your members will be lumped in with the rest of the chickenboner con artists and suffer irreparable harm to their reputations. And they'll have nobody to blame but you - the people who told them that opt-out was an acceptable business model.
The bottom line is that if you encourage your members to spam us, you'll lose their confidence, and eventually, your entire reason to exist. Wanna piece of my mind, DMA? You REALLY wanna know what I think about your "targeted opportunities" and how they "make my life better"? Spam me and find out. What goes for the MMF, MLM, and the stock pump-n-dumpers goes just as well for you: "You wanna find out? Go ahead, punk. Make my day."
The legal precedent is bloody clear on this, and goes back 30 years:
"Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit. The ancient concept that 'a man's home is his castle' into which 'not even the king may enter' has lost none of its vitality. We therefore categorically reject the argument that a vendor has a right under the Constitution or otherwise to send unwanted material into the home of another. If this prohibition operates to impede the flow of even valid ideas, the answer is that no one has a right to press even 'good' ideas on an unwilling recipient. That we are often 'captives' outside the sanctuary of the home and subject to objectionable speech and other sound does not mean we must be captives everywhere. The asserted right of a mailer, we repeat, stops at the outer boundary of every person's domain."
Chief Justice Berger
U.S. Supreme Court
ROWAN v. U. S. POST OFFICE DEPT., 397 U.S. 728
May 4, 1970.
--
Tackhead, 142 dialup accounts, 30 web sites, 3 spam domains killed and counting. Is your account next? Spam me and find out the hard way.
If this is the "secret summit" I'm aware of, it's really old news - it happened almost a year ago. It wasn't totally a CAUCE thing - other antispammers were involved as well. I didn't go, but was a part of the discussions that led up to it. Both sides reached some common ground and put out a press release afterward. The DMA has since broken their word on every point they agreed to, if I recall correctly. :)
Village idiot in some extremely smart villages.
My father does MLM in his spare time (he's 55) and even if e-mail is solicited, he still gets reported for spam. Simply because the person who gets the e-mail, automatically assumes what he has sent them is spam. Spam isn't nearly as out of hand as it used to be. It is the spam natzies out there that are slowly but surely making it impossible to send e-mail to anyone in the hopes of opening new communication streams. What is the point of e-mail if this is the case? There is a phone that is much more efficient for communication to people you alredy know. Use it instead. Don't crowd the internet with your bantering. SPAM EGGS, EGGS AND SPAM.
It is time to change the buisness practices of the drones of the world.
They chose to be associated with the group let them pay for their actions. I suggest that every last member be added to the RBL. Don't pick and chose. Doing this will send a powerful message to them. Do what the other poster suggested and mail back your unsolicited junk mail attached to boxes of rocks. If enough people do this it might just make them afraid to send out so much of the shit they do. If I need their products then I will search for them not the other way around.
I wish we could kill them all.. i mean it.. lets blow up the next DMA convention, and kill as many as those bastards as we can -- Quake III Style!
The "non-spam" you speak of sure sounds like spam to me. "Opening new communication streams" would indicate unsolicited E-mail.
My father does MLM in his spare time (he's 55) and even if e-mail is solicited, he still gets reported for spam. Simply because the person who gets the e-mail, automatically assumes what he has sent them is spam.
I see the point, here. But, apparently the recipients didn't realize that they were signing up for an MLM come-on, which is still junk.
...that nobody has mentioned SpamCop (http://spamcop.net) yet.
It is the single most effective trace-and-LART tool available.
I don't know if it has reduced my spam volume any, but it sure is fun to fire off those abuse messages.
(And no, I don't work for them, I am just a contented user of their free service.)
-- The Brory Stool Co.: We accidentally the best stools from behind seven proxies, since 2009.
make the spammers pay either 1/2 of the total cost of maintaining the spammed ISP's network for 1 or 2 years or for every $1 spent by the ISP to maintain its network the spammer must give the ISP $1-$5 for 6 monthes to a year. If the spammer can't/won't pay it then put them in jail for 6 monthes, put a felony charge on their record and put their company's name on an untrustworthy business list run by a group like the BBB
There is no reason to not know. The problem is, people don't read things. They assume. Because of all of this the spam contraversy is having the same effect as the media does for a murder or what not. And again I ask, what is the point of e-mail if you are not allowed to use it? Spam nazies are the majority of the "Activists" out there who are making it impossible to use e-mail by their "good intentions" Well good intentions is the road to hell. And without e-mail there is almost no reason to have an internet. Try being a little more tollerant. Quit visiting the porn sites and giving your e-mail out freely. I have had my e-mails for a long time, over 5 years. None of them, inluding my aol account get very much spam. When I do, I delete it. Easy.
It is time to change the buisness practices of the drones of the world.
----
----
----------------------------
> Hi, I'm Jenny, an 18 year old college cheerleader
> who's just so horney. Can you call me at 1-800-555-1010,
> have your credit card ready.
hi, i'm eric. i dont have a creit card, im 8 yrs old. where do you do to schol? i like math. i will call you tonite.
----------------------------
(No, I have not gotten replies back, telling me not to call).
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Since the only way to reply to most spam e-mails is by toll-free number, the only way to transfer cost to them would be if you could a telephone company that is even sleazier than they are, and have them hire, to respond to each and every message received, and then say "no thanks".
If the maximum rate paid for originating a toll free call is above the minimum wage, it could turn into a profit center.
I look at all the spam I recieve and add the companies' products or services they are telling me about to my list of things I will NEVER EVER buy or use. By sending me spam, they eliminate the possibility of myself as a consumer that they benefit from. Best way they have to drive me to the competition is to spam me. May all spammers rot in hellfire between politicians and traitors!
-Mike D
Last week, the DMA also announced the launch of a global remove list -- but one that does not allow ISPs to opt out their own domains.
Honestly, I would be astounded if they agreed to let ISP's opt out entire domains. Basically, that would completely eliminate unsolicited mail. I realize that that's precisely what CAUCE wants -- it's what the AUCE stands for -- but I'd never imagine that the DMA would volunteer to do it.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
Spammers will allways find a way to send the garbage if they want to. ISP's could stop a lot of spam by making the penality for spamming IP blocking to any website mentioned in the spam for say, 30 days. Sending spam would result in fewer hits on the site instead of more hits, Which would take the profit out of spamming. At the least it would stop the porn spam. For those who will say this is censorship, censorship is blocking for content. This is a penality for actions of the site operator, not the content of the site. If they refrain from spamming they could be accessed after the penality time was over.
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
What the DMA folks really want, and what they have de facto right now, is a monopoly on email spam; or near enough to one not to matter. When everybody is getting 100 email spam messages a day, though, every single ISP will find a way to filter it out; and email spam will not work anymore.
We're probably a year away from this now; but we will inevitably get there. If the DMA was really smart, they'd lobby for tremendously tough spam regulation, because that's the only way to preserve the utility of spam.
What they don't realize is that junk snail-mail is self regulating, in that it's pretty darn expensive to send out junk snail-mail. The fact that e-mail spam is free is what, paradoxically, will kill it.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
Read RFC821. In a nutshell, the To: line has absolutely nothing to do with where and how the mail gets delivered, it's just another part of the message being delivered. Most MUA's of course insert a valid To: line for your convenience.
My father does MLM in his spare time (he's 55) and even if e-mail is solicited, he still gets reported for spam.
This would confirm that MLM suckers really are idiots with comprehension problems. Even more, years of dealing with spammers has made me very proficient in translating their funny little code. What you're really saying is that you're a spammer and you saw someone mention MLM in a newsgroup once, so you figured they wanted to hear your plan, so you sent them an e-mail message. Your kind is incapable of learning, so I won't bother to explain.
Spam isn't nearly as out of hand as it used to be.
And that would be why postings to anti-spam newsgroups such as news.admin.net-abuse.email have tripled every year since the it was created. Unless you have some statistics to prove this point, you're talking out of your ass.
It is the spam natzies out there that are slowly but surely making it impossible to send e-mail to anyone in the hopes of opening new communication streams.
"Opening new communication streams?" BAHAHAHAHAHA. Spoken like a true innocent bystander.
It is not the "spam natzies" who have damaged e-mail, it is the spammers who have stolen the resources of millions of other users in their attempt to turn someone's paid-for e-mail account into their personal billboard.
What is the point of e-mail if this is the case?
My e-mail account exists soley for my convenience, and if you don't like it, that's just too damn bad.
And it's spelled N-A-Z-I-S, you clue-impaired fuckwit.
I hate stupid people.
Alright, I'm going to be the devil's advocate here when I say I do not see such a terrible issue as long as spammers spam legally. If they use an ISP who is notorious for ignoring spammers and letting them do whatever they wish--soon this ISP's name would be rediculed, and not many people in thier right mind would deal with them. Just look at UU.net.
As for the proposed solutions to stop spamming, such as making so as to block every SMTP server but yours. That is a very MindSpring thing to do, and although that would cut down on your users spamming people I as a non-spamming person would find an ISP that does not restrict me. Why do you ask? I don't really like restrictions, because I'm paying -you- money, I should be able to access anything I wish on the 'net. (pron included, hate those proxy-ISPs but thats a different thread all together)
As for the dorks who take advantage of a system's administrators mistakes--crucify them. And I bet that administrator won't make that mistake again when his InBox is filled with what the spammer sent out, which is what I do, send it back to the source machine.
My philosophy? Just delete it.
suddenly I feel very tired
The Phone is more efficient? What world do you live in? Using email eliminates phone tag, which is one reason why it is so important to me and why I want to keep spam from destroying email.
It might be ok to use email to establish new contacts if people would use restraint - but not using restraint might make them more money so obviously that idea is out the window.
By the way, how many emails did your father send? Were they unsolicited? (Where did he get the addresses?)
Nobody is against using email for personal communications. Spammers, (which is what your MLM father IS), are sending email to make money for themselves. They/he doesn't want to communicate at all. Get that through your pointy father's head and perhaps he won't lose more accounts.
Don't try to make spam the recipient's problem. Normal people should not have to take steps to protect themselves from scum-wad spammers.
Gowaan... Ask me how I REALLY feel about spam!
I dont think spam is like junk mail. It's almost identical to telemarketing, and harder to prevent. I'm a telemarketer (not by choice) and I find it to be just like spam, but with restrictions. With telemarketing, if you ask them to remove you from their list, they have to or pay a $500 fine (in the US at least). And if you ask to speak to their supervisor, or even higher up (as high as you can get), you'll be sure not to get called again. Also, write down everything, like names and addresses, that freaks them out. They need to implement a similar system with spam, and, unfortunately, that's not going to happen without government intervention it seems. Get involved in your government, and lets get direct marketing outlawed. Nothing more, just that.
It is called pushing a button. If that is too difficult for you, God help you.
It is time to change the buisness practices of the drones of the world.
Please, think this through.
Do you want them to have support for the claim that only terrorists and the sorts of people who harass third parties are opposed to spam?
Be, at all times, polite, honest, above-board, and forthright. Otherwise, why should you expect anyone to take you seriously?
Forwarding all your spam to the DMA is just plain childish.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Spamcop generates more *TOTALLY* misdirected complaints than any other mechanism I'm aware of. I have talked to people who run *real* abuse desks who are thinking of just auto-binning anything that refers to Spamcop, because it's so hopelessly broken.
Sam Spade is pretty good.
(Disclaimer: I don't use any of 'em, I do it by hand.)
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Lol, what a jerk post that was. People like you are those that are bringing the internet down. It is those that just let what happen, happen that are making a crontribution to the internet. You can blame it on spammers, satan, your ass. But regardless, it is your kind that is hurting the internet, not anything else. The only place the current deffinitiion of spam has actually been created is in the individual persons mind. It is a fad, a trend. An easy target to start contraversy. The only valid spam e-mail in the world is truely UN-SOLICITED e-mail. This means basically someone who got your e-mail from somewhere and is e-mailing you on something that has nothing to do with what you originaly intende to do. People that post on FFA links pages for instance are not recieveing spam when they get e-mails suddenly. They left their e-mail on the site, and that is solicitation enough. If you say something to the generaly public, do I not talk back? It is the same thing. If you do not want e-mail, don't conduct your buisness on the internet. Otherwise you have to open yourself to sales offers. Porn, on the other hand, should not be allowed to use the e-mail system. This is indeed spam because nearly no one is stupid enough to put their e-mail on these sites. Nor needs to. Yet 12 year olds on aol are getting hundreds of messages from these idiots. The fuckwit is only the one who tried to debunk what one said by correcting their spelling. Which, to explain in simpler terms for your understanding. This means YOU.
He got them from his FFA links page called "MLM opportunities" Over the last 4 months he has collected over 25k e-mail addresses from this FFA links page. because the deffinition of spam is merely to the individual person, about 10% of these 25k people are most likely thinking it's spam. Even though they solicited e-mails by posting their link on the website. Which is stated both on the website and the e-mails. Whats more, about 25% of the 10% of the whole are actually fowarding these e-mails to "the authorities" without reading the messages. Because "the authorities" are naturally biased against any and all cases of even possible spam, they go right ahead and contact the ISP without even talking to my father first.
It is time to change the buisness practices of the drones of the world.
I really hate telephone spam because I sleep wierd hours and they wake me up. Seems like everyone is using auto-dialers these days. These things are easily detectable, just say hello and if no one responds in 1.5 seconds then it's an autodialer. I was thinking about setting up a modem that would say an automated "hello" and listen for silence. If it wasn't an auto-dialer then it would beep me and tell the person to hang on a second. Is there an established API under linux for doing full-duplex sound on a modem? I don't mind buying a specific brand of modem.
Thanks!
-- Virtual Windows Project
I'm new on /., still getting used to the moderated scoring system. Is there a particular benefit to posting anonymously (FFA in #141)?
It is called pushing a button.
Funny, my DELETE button is connected to your Internet account. Let's see what happens when I push it?
Lol, to avoid spam and flame mail mostly.
It is time to change the buisness practices of the drones of the world.
Or at least in Mass. They have made SPAM similar to unsolicited faxes.
People like you are those that are bringing the internet down.
:-) :-) :-) :-)
And from your keyboard, this is supposed to be an insult?
. It is those that just let what happen, happen that are making a crontribution to the internet.
What the fuck are you trying to say here? It sounds like you changed your mind in mid-sentence.
You can blame it on spammers, satan, your ass.
I consulted with the Dark Overlord and my posterior, and all three of us are in agreement: you're a moron.
But regardless, it is your kind that is hurting the internet, not anything else
And my kind outnumbers your kind. Know what that means? It means WE WIN!
Don't like it? You don't have to. My e-mail account is my private property and I set the terms for its use -- not you. If I want to demand that every correspondent must first FedEx me a videotape of them standing naked in the middle of San Francisco's Market Street spitting nickles and dimes out their ass before I allow them to send me e-mail, I can do that. I can do that because it's my property.
Sigh. Why do I bother? Your kind is incapable of learning.
The only place the current deffinitiion of spam has actually been created is in the individual persons mind.
If it wasn't asked for, it's unsolicited.
The only valid spam e-mail in the world is truely UN-SOLICITED e-mail. This means basically someone who got your e-mail from somewhere and is e-mailing you on something that has nothing to do with what you originaly intende to do.
Bzzt. Wrong. Thanks for playing. If it wasn't asked for, it's unsolicited.
(Why do I keep repeating this? Spammers are incapable of learning any value lessons. What's the word psychiatrists use to describe this behavior trait? Oh yes! SOCIOPATH.)
Sociopath!
People that post on FFA links pages for instance are not recieveing spam when they get e-mails suddenly. They left their e-mail on the site, and that is solicitation enough
E-mail that was not asked for is unsolicited. Content is irrelevant. If someone did not ask for the e-mail, then it was not wanted.
If you say something to the generaly public, do I not talk back?
Are you trying to compare a slashdot posting with e-mail? Freak.
It is the same thing
If you mean "the same thing" as in "my video camera makes bagels," perhaps you have a point.
If you do not want e-mail, don't conduct your buisness on the internet. Otherwise you have to open yourself to sales offers.
Bzzzt. Wrong, sociopath. Simply because I have an e-mail account, it does not obligate me to do anything.
I say this as smug and self-satisfied as I can possibly be because you are in the minority. You can scream your mis-spelled, partially formed, and quite flawed opinions 'til you're blue in the face, but it won't change a damn thing. So go ahead, lay down on the ground, ball up your fists, squint your eyes, kick yourself around in a circle, and screech about the issue. Have your little temper tantrum. When you're done, you'll find that your accounts still get cancelled for spamming. I'm right, you're wrong, and no matter how many rants you post, that will not change.
Porn, on the other hand, should not be allowed to use the e-mail system. This is indeed spam because nearly no one is stupid enough to put their e-mail on these sites
Where do you get these ideas? One of the biggest OPT-IN (tiny words for you: e-mail people have SPECIFICALLY ASKED TO RECEIVE) mailing lists on the Internet is all about the latest and greatest sites showing nekkid people. Content is meaningless: if it wasn't asked for, it shouldn't be sent.
The fuckwit is only the one who tried to debunk what one said by correcting their spelling.
Yours sucks, too.
Which, to explain in simpler terms for your understanding. This means YOU.
Good gawd, son. Mahir can write more coherently than you.
I checked out your site, and I have a question:
...we do not have a rule for yet? Hey, they're your servers and it's nice to give out freebies. Just seems like you're leaving yourself open for trouble. What about your upstream provider? It would be a shame to lose your connection all for a lack of a no-spamming rule.
Your Terms of Service state many things that can get a free account terminated, but it does not mention spamming.
Does this means that any Eosnet customer who advertises his Eosnet site via unsolicited e-mail will not suffer any consequences as a result?
Speaking of upstream providers, you have a fascinating traceroute for a commercial site.
The DMA represents large marketing interests. Any such centralized, institionalized spammers would be instantly RBLed, and a significant enough portion of the net uses the RBL these days that this simply would not be effective.
The successful spammers (in the sense of actually getting the mail delivered) use underhanded techniques such as stolen earthlink accounts and open relays in third world countries.
My main point though, is that SPAM must be criminalized ASAP. SPAM is an extremely scalable operation. I currently receive probably 5-10 or so a day (and I use the RBL, DUL and RSS--who knows how much I'd receive otherwise), but there's no reason that should not increase to 100s, maybe even thousands as more of the world becomes wired.
By contrast, "just hit the delete key" is not a scalable solution, for obvious reasons.
Much as I don't like the government excercising control over the net, in this case I think it's the only way.
Bruce
Everyone seems to be saying that junk snail-mail does cost the recipient like junk e-mail does. I do not believe this to be entirely true.
While the cost of producing the snail mail is on the sender, as well as the cost of mailing it, this cost of mailing is subsidized by everyone that uses the post office.
My previous job involved using the post office for delivery of a weekly newspaper. I can say, after having to deal with the costs of such mailings, that while the cost for first class letters and second class periodicals continue to rise, the cost for unsolicited mail are actually declining.
We are actually paying to subsidize this business, and it sickens me.
The summit was held almost a year ago, shortly after the last DMA annual conference. I organized it after realizing where the DMA was headed, and undercutting the announcement of their prior incarnation of an opt-out system by developing SAFEeps (http://www.safeeps.com).
It was secret (sort of) up until the meeting, and then public right after. Now it is academic. They've gone back on their word, and Bob Wientzen, the DMA President, has said "Screw you" to the group he met with.
I have been an active member of the DMA for almost 20 years through a computer service bureau I own. And I have been inolved with the Internet for some time through one of my friends and my mentor, the late Jon Postel. These days I am almost embarassed to be a member of the DMA. But as a voting member, paying significant dues, I can still make my feelings known within the direct marketing industry. I also get to know where they're going much earlier - hence my ability to short circuit their prior e-mps system.
Enough of background. Now for the issues;
As I said to Deb at Salon Magazine, this time I think the DMA has "really really done it". If the DMA succeeds in getting the notion of opt-out accepted, without the ability to have an ISP opt their entire domain out, we're screwed. All of us. By and large, most of the spam spewed forth today comes from the so-called "chicken boners". The traditional business world, including those 4700 members of the DMA, are sitting on the sidelines, scared off by the existing consumer backlash, and the threat of legal attack from states like WA, CA, VA, and otheres, and from the RBL which is very effective. As soon as the DMA gets acceptance for their system, these 4700 companies will begin to step in. Then you'll really see spam. And this time around, there will be nothing you can do about it.
However, the mere fact that the DMA implements it's e-mps *does not mean* that we have to accept it. Not making any noise will mean we do. And the noise needs to be made in the direction of two groups: the legslators, to tell them that it is unacceptable to the voters, and to the marketers to tell them that it is unacceptable to their customers. Start making the noise now. Write to your congressional representatives, and let them know how you feel. Visit the CAUCE site (http://www.cauce.org/), and get their addresses.
But *don't* give in, and don't just delete the spam you get. *Make a noise*.
For those of you who don't want any legistlation, be aware of this: The DMA will get legislation to allow their system to exist. We need legislation to make sure that if they send spam, we have laws on the books to go after them with, and punish them. This is a property issue, and a cost-shifting issue.
The DMA has had a pretty good run with traditional marketing, especially "snail mail". Now they arrogantly believe that they can get away with setting the rules for e-mail marketing. The difference this time is that the medium actually allows the issue to be discussed, in places like this, and newsgroups like NANAE etc.
That post suuuure looks like it came from Joffe of SafeEPS. If you concur, consider using a moderation point for it. He's one of the principals in this debate, and knows whereof he speaks.
Sure, it may cost you some small amount of money to receive the spam, but for most people that's really minor - a few minutes of connect time a week, which for most Americans is free.
It also costs some money for your ISP to receive the spam, since they're receiving larger quantities of it, but most ISPs have fixed-size data lines and there's near-zero incremental cost for more traffic on them. Disk drives are also nearly free.
The real cost of spam is the amount of time you spend dealing with it. It's those mental cycles you have to spin looking at mail on your mailing lists that's just spam, or building filters to auto-trash things marked M8K3 M0NEY FA$T, and the sheer annoyance that the spammers don't mind wasting your personal time with their junk, because some small percentage of the readers are suckers who will buy what they're selling.
Some spam is worth hunting down - particularly anything selling spamware or pyramid scams that will lead to lots more spam. It helps if there's an obvious internet address that the spammers are using to have suckers contact them - traceroute makes it easy to find the service providers and ask them to shut down the accounts.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The DMA also works against anti-phone-spamming laws, most of which would have required them to abide by state-controlled *opt-out* (not even opt-in) lists where consumers could sign up to not get bothered by robodialing phone hucksters during showers/supper/sex/whatever. Here in California, they bought enough state senators that even though the above bill made it through committee, the DMA's whores in the legislature shouted it down.
Ya know, a California citizen's initiative to limit phone solicitations to only those citizens who have _opted in_ to get phone shills bothering them would be a first small step to gaining back our right to privacy. If anyone's interested, please follow up to this post, whereupon I'll send you my address for further talks.
So they construct this large mound (or mountain) of SPAM and then they expect people to climb or otherwise ascend to the top of it in order to hold a discussion or debate of the overall merits of SPAM itself which in my mind should be declarded on of the basic food groups if not eaten in ignorance of other types of food like absyninthe?
> One thing to note is that many people *have* granted permission to at ...
/against/ it, as I am the ONLY PERSON in this division who has any sort of Internet experience whatsoever. I was assured, however, that a). this was perfectly okay, and b). that the customers of $ISP regularly received such solicitations as a condition of receiving internet access, etc. What no one from $ISP had bothered telling us was that this was the first time they had used this particular marketing technique, and that people were *not* expecting it at all.
/5/ requests for more information, so it must be working, right?
/prominent/ links to CAUCE, and it went right over their heads; they'd gotten a response, and to their mind, that was enough to justify pissing off the rest and /totally/ trashing our net.reputation with the people we'd done this to. They don't understand, quite yet, that screwing up like this could be one of the greatest public-relations disasters we've had in ... well, nevermind, as we have frequent public-relations disasters...
/acquaintance/ with spam.
> least one breed of spammer, which is the one using purchased lists
> compiled from all the places which have asked you for an email
> address in order to (for instance) "send you important updates"
> and say in the fine print that the info may be provided to other
> "fine" merchants
*clicks the Post Anonymously button RIGHT now before forgetting*
There's another type, too, and that's a little more of a grey area. Let me tell you a little story.
I work for a Very Large Insurance and Financial Institution ($VLIFI) which Shall Remain Nameless. My division of said $VLIFI has recently discovered "that whole Internet thing" and, like many companies who just don't get, promptly realized that this is a vast sea of untapped marketing resources, etc. The marketing weasels have thankfully not gone so far as to purchase one of those "LIST OF 1000000 EMAIL ADDRESSES" and use those, but what they have done is, in corporate-speak, "forged a partnership" with a certain ISP that offers free email in exchange for targeted ads.
The deal that $ISP has with its customer is the usual banner-ad-running-on-the-screen model that's been getting so much press lately. Buried way deep in $ISP's contract with the end-user, though, is a clause that allows $ISP to use 'other forms of ads at our discretion'. $VLIFI and $ISP put together a deal in which $ISP would send, to its customers, a solicitation to speak with an insurance representative. The wording on the solicitation was very poor; it appeared to be the usual drek that we're all familiar with, and nowhere did it mention that the solicitation was being sent by $ISP -- it appeared to come from $VLIFI directly.
I found out about this plan about a week before the first mass-mailing, and spent the entire week arguing in meetings
The mailing went out. 100,000 pieces of mail.
Five minutes later, the reply address was swamped. Death threats, legal threats, unsubscribe requests, most of which used language you wouldn't ever dare repeat in front of your mother, all of which Yours Truly was responsible for. I stood up and screamed my head off (in a metaphorical sense, of course) to get them to STOP doing this, as it was obviously a). NOT perfectly okay and b). NOT expected, but alas -- embedded in the justifiably-annoyed-complaints were
Over the next two months, we did another three mailings, and the replies were abysmal. I tried putting it into terms that they would understand -- risk analysis, Rate of Response, etc (out of the 400,000 messages sent, there were something like 75 actual leads generated). I tried emphasizing the fact that replying to and processing these responses was eating up MY WHOLE GODDAMN DAY. I was fighting up until the very end to cut off the mailing, because I was sick and tired of pissing people off like that, but to no avail.
So the moral of my little story is this: sometimes what appears to be spam, isn't. But it's still annoying, and people still hate it, and COMPANIES STILL SHOULDN'T DO IT UNLESS PEOPLE EXPLICITLY OPT IN.
Oh, and marketing people are clueless when it comes to the internet, and there's a really good reason for that. They're trying to apply the old business model (where a demographically-targeted mass mailing has at least even odds, if crafted properly, of producing the magic 2% response rate) to something that only superficially resembles it. The problem is that the superficial resemblence is enough to make them stop right there and term it a Good Idea, and not go any further. I crafted a scathing note to the marketing individuals in question after this whole debacle that included
I'm looking for another job. I don't want to work for a company that has even a passing
You could always setup a cron job to mail them 2 - 3 times a day asking to be removed, just make sure you use a hotmail account or something as the from/reply to address.
I work in the MIS dept. at a publically-traded computer product reseller. About a year ago our company decided it'd be a good idea to have its employees collect email addresses from their friends and colleagues, for the purpose of sending them email telling them about our latest specials and how to order. Sure, I was a little unscrupulous about helping to collect these addresses, I mean raiding all the popular antispam sites, congressional websites, ISP spam abuse reporting pages, etc, for email addresses probably wasn't the best way to achieve the short-term results the executives were looking for. So, I can tell you firsthand what happened to the recieving end when the trial-run of 1 million emails went out the door.
I assure you, our company will never EVER spam again, and personally I'm glad to have done my part to stop it.
Form a non-profit organization. Everyone who doesn't want to receive SPAM will send this organization an authorization to act on his/her behalf.
Whenever you receive SPAM, you forward it to this organization (headers and all). No big deal. A few seconds of work.
This organization then traces the spammer (the spammer has to leave a fingerprint, as they want to sell something). This organization then files a lawsuit against this spammer, asking for 10c for each member that was spammed. This money is used to pay the lawyers of the organization.
I am hoping that the spammers will find they can no longer send millions of ads for a trivial cost. They now have to pay for lawyers, stand in court, and potentially, pay thousands of dollars for their abuse. I am hoping that this, high, cost will deter spammers, and can, potentially, kill the entire spam phenomena altogether.
The only problem is that I am not a US citizen (or resident), and I cannot setup such an organization.
Please tell me what you think.
What I'm saying is, the DMA isn't in charge of all the e-spam going on in the States or Canada. There are many companies which start up on their own whose first step is to purchase name lists and spam away, hoping for the aforementioned magical 2% response. Talking with the DMA will not take care of (IMOSHO) much of the problem at all.
Droit devant soi on ne peut pas aller bien loin...
Droit devant soi on ne peut pas aller bien loin...
Straight ahead of him, nobody can go very far... -- Le P
Reporting spam is the only way that to stop the spammers.... ---- Resources to check out... My webpage of course: ------- Webpage: Zodiac Antispam Services Inc. http://members.xoom.com/rwynne has message forum to discuss fighting spam ------- direct link to message forum: http://disc.server.com/Indices/75490.html ------ -Zodiac
Why "Just delete it" is not a solution:
Other reasons why spam is undesirable
On the issue of legality:
Links:
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The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
(Note: My previous message was normal when I previewed it, but when I posted it, Slashdot ate 100 bytes from the end of the message, losing the closing tags from a link and an unordered list. I have reposted the message without complex tags or links.)
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Delete it? This is one common spammer response to the issue of spam. "If you don't want it, just delete it." Other common spammer responses are "What I'm doing is not illegal" (technically, it probably is, as I will show), "I have a right to do this, under S.1618, a proposed Bill" (this bill was defeated and did not become law), and "I have a constitutional right to free speech" (if that was true and spammers had a right to spam, then I have the same right to break into a spammer's home at 2 in the morning, come into their bedroom and read them my resume using a megaphone at maximum volume).
Why "Just delete it" is not a solution:
* By the time you receive the e-mail, resources that cost real money to install, use and maintain have been consumed to send the message to you. Thus, the spammer has effectively stolen from various places on the 'Net.
* You have to spend your own time to discard the junk. Could that time be better used by you earning money? Do you place a monetary value on your own time? If so, then the spammer has stolen from you as well.
* If spammers felt that "just delete it" was an appropriate response if their spam was unwanted, then they would make it easy to filter the spam automatically. A few actually do this by putting "ADV:" or something similar in the subject. However, the majority of spammers don't want their message deleted, and some go as far as putting misleading subjects in the message to make you think it's from someone you know so you have to read the message, e.g.: "Info you requested" and "Hi, remember me?".
* Can you delete your way through 50, 100, 200, 300, 500, 1000 spams a day? If nothing is done about stopping spam, the volume of spam will only increase to the point where e-mail is no longer a usable resource for the 'Net community. Spammers, by spamming, are destroying the usefulness of the resources that they exploit.
Other reasons why spam is undesirable
* Electronic mail is not a broadcast medium. E-mail is meant to be a communication between two people, not a means by which a dysfunctional individual can spew junk all over the 'Net.
* Spamming is not a legitimate form of advertising. If spam was a legitimate form of advertising, then reputable business would be using it. Legitimate businesses do not generally use spam to advertise.
On the issue of legality:
* It is now illegal in some jurisdictions (Washington State, USA, for example) to send e-mail with forged headers or misleading subject lines.
* Forging the headers of an e-mail message may also constitute fraud in jurisdictions without explicit anti-spam laws. Fraud is a criminal offence.
* Sending pornographic spam to minors is almost certainly illegal, regardless of whether it contains a disclaimer stating that "you must be over 18 to view this" or words to that effect. Would you leave the Kama Sutra on your coffee table at home, but tell your kids that you must be over 18 to read it? Sending pornographic spam to an Australian resident may also be illegal after 1 January, 2000, when the Online Services amendments to the Telecommunications Act come into force.
* Advertising of any product or service is subject to laws that regulate truth in advertising. Making up testimonials is illegal. Claims that are false are illegal. Lying in advertising is illegal.
* Pyramid scams and other similar "Get-rich-quick" schemes are illegal.
* Asking people to send cash through the post is probably illegal.
* Using resources that other people have paid for is regarded by many as theft. Theft is a criminal offence.
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The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. - Edmund Burke
Christopher Beamon, is that you? Your language skills seem to be deteriorating with time....
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/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.