Of course you should ensure that you reach an actual human
by contacting them via their logs!!! Be sure to include the
email in question, including all the headers, and everything down
to HELO, etc., so they know which email you're referring to. And
of course append a nice polite note explaining to them how
they were in error, so that they could be sure not to
repeat their mistake.
Cram as much of that into the log entry as you can.
If you think you can only get a limited amount of text into one
url, break the returned emain and note into portions put into
successive log entries. Then when you're sure they have the
whole thing, also send it in one single block of text. It will be
more convenient for them to read if it gets through that way. On the
other hand, if such a humongous url breaks something, they're
more likely to read the logs and discover that they have a
problem with spam from their system.
On the off chance that any of the people referred to by email
address in the spam has any authority to do anything other
than sell you their widget, you should also send the returned
spam and nice note to all the email addresses in the spam. Be
sure to also include root, admin, administrator, postmaster,
abuse, info, and whatever you can think of as addresses
to send to at their domain.
If you whip up a script to do all that automatically to
every piece of mail that gets filtered into your spam bucket,
you might want to keep a list of those addresses, so you can
filter out the bounces you're sure to get because any organization
unprofessional enough to have spammers probably isn't dealing
properly with all the responses they're getting.
I don't think that you could be considered to be spamming
them, since you already have an established relationship with
them, due to the fact that they contacted you first. And you
really need to ensure that your message gets through to them,
so serious measures are appropriate.
As far as legality, it's probably a lot more legal than
launching them out of a catapult, and a lot less work, too.
Microsoft IIS users? [glowingplate.com] They're probably not even circumcised. Savages.
Actually, they probably *are* circumcised. Missing significant functionality and being convinced they've gotten something better
sounds more like a Microsoft user.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course you should ensure that you reach an actual human by contacting them via their logs!!!
Be sure to include the email in question, including all the headers, and everything down to HELO, etc., so they know which email you're referring to. And of course append a nice polite note explaining to them how they were in error, so that they could be sure not to repeat their mistake. Cram as much of that into the log entry as you can. If you think you can only get a limited amount of text into one url, break the returned emain and note into portions put into successive log entries. Then when you're sure they have the whole thing, also send it in one single block of text. It will be more convenient for them to read if it gets through that way. On the other hand, if such a humongous url breaks something, they're more likely to read the logs and discover that they have a problem with spam from their system.
On the off chance that any of the people referred to by email address in the spam has any authority to do anything other than sell you their widget, you should also send the returned spam and nice note to all the email addresses in the spam. Be sure to also include root, admin, administrator, postmaster, abuse, info, and whatever you can think of as addresses to send to at their domain.
If you whip up a script to do all that automatically to every piece of mail that gets filtered into your spam bucket, you might want to keep a list of those addresses, so you can filter out the bounces you're sure to get because any organization unprofessional enough to have spammers probably isn't dealing properly with all the responses they're getting.
I don't think that you could be considered to be spamming them, since you already have an established relationship with them, due to the fact that they contacted you first. And you really need to ensure that your message gets through to them, so serious measures are appropriate.
As far as legality, it's probably a lot more legal than launching them out of a catapult, and a lot less work, too.
Actually, they probably *are* circumcised. Missing significant functionality and being convinced they've gotten something better sounds more like a Microsoft user.
(And "micro soft" == "tiny limp", after all!)