lol i'm open about this b/c i really don't think i'm spamming.
Richter claims he isn't spamming. Rlasky claims he isn't spamming. Spammers pretty much always say that. You admit you get spam complaints on a regular basis, and that your list is not confirmed.
It's just because it's regarding adult clubs (read: strip clubs) that it automatically get's seen as spam.
No, that's not true. It's because there are people on your mailing list that do not *want* to be on your mailing list.
I tried to help. You want to continue using unconfirmed addresses and receiving spam complaints. I don't think I can do any good here. Best of luck.
Yes, it is. A lot of people *want* drugs, just like a lot of people *wanted* alcohol back during prohibition. Outlawing something that is popular with large numbers of people is quite difficult.
People do not want spam. A few people want to send spam to everyone else - but the recipients don't want it. Even the spammers don't want their own email boxes full of junk.
Here is another example of how CAN-SPAM is making things worse. Spammers are using it as an excuse for their activities. Scott Richter has filed suit against Spamcop, arguing that he is CAN-SPAM compliant and they are therefore complanining about his spam without a valid reason.
Nowhere have I read that it would make spam worse.
Then let me be the first to tell you. CAN-SPAM is likely to make spam worse. It was written by the DMA, designed to legalize their spam runs. It specifically tells companies "It's OK to spam, as long as you do it this way".
However, I'm not the first to say this, by a long shot. Using google, I can find numerous articles to that effect. Here are a few.
Are we sending "solicited" or "unsolicited" email?
You are sending both. I would recommend that you seperate your list into two lists. One should contain the addresses that have confirmed they want to be on the list. The other should have the addresses which have not confirmed.
Then you should send one final message to the "unconfirmed" list. Tell them that they are going to be dropped from the list, and that they need to sign up again, and follow the confirmation step. Anyone that doesn't do that doesn't want to be on your list. Once you've sent this final message to them, throw away their email addresses - you have no need for them any more.
I don't expect you to do this - you want to pretend that everyone wants to be on your mailing list, despite the fact that you regularly get spam complaints.
But if you are truely worried about defending yourself, having confirmations for *every* email address in your list will help protect you.
And if you have any morals, you'll feel better once you quit spamming.
All those who are diluged under spam fall into the luser group.
I have several public addresses on my website, in WhoIs, etc, which have been there for years. I refuse to kill them off because once everyone starts hiding their email addresses, the spammers have effectively killed off email as a useful tool.
I get 400-500 spams a day, plus bounces where spammers fake my domain when they send their spam.
It takes me very little time to deal with it - as you say, computers work for us.
And you have the gall to claim I'm a luser because I don't do things the way you do? Fuck you! You just keep hiding from spam and pretending it's not a problem. You keep pretending that your way is the only way and everyone who does anything different is a clueless luser. You just keep pretending that you have a clue - but I know better.
When I originally wrote that form months ago it took me several hours.
I call BS. That form, or one very similar to it, has been around for a long time - a lot longer than a few months. It used to get posted on NANAE (news.admin.net-abuse.email) fairly often several years ago.
I hadn't heard about that. That is sad news. There is nothing wrong with the system itself - but I don't like the idea of trying to get everyone to switch to a patented system. Previously I'd supported SPF - I'm not sure I will if he's throwing in with the MS patented system.
If Yahoo's scheme is widely implemented, then the entire email system will suddenly be held to Yahoo's whim, as they have patented the system they want the rest of us to use. A solution to spam needs to be public, available to anyone, not subject to the wishes of some corporation.
SPF makes the system public, instead of protected by patents. That's better for everyone except the company who wants everyone to use their patented system.
You probably already have one email address: the one your ISP gave you. For all intents and purposes, that's your canonical identity when you're on the Internet.
My ISP changes from time to time. Recently, DSL became available here, so I switched to DSL. Southwestern Bell is now my ISP. They gave me an SWBell email address. I don't remember what it is (I do have a note someplace) or how to use it. I don't need it. It's probably full of spam by now, since I never clean it out.
My email address is at my domain. My domain doesn't change just because I changed ISP's. Therefore, your claim that for all practical purposes the ISP address is my real identity is just BS.
I'm not surprised that T-Mobile has been selling personal information. They also send email spam, via "affiliates". I'm shopping for a new cell phone (camera phone) to replce my old cell phone, and the spam they sent me kept them from consideration. Never do business with spammers.
You may not trust the DNC list, but my experience is that we received a *lot* of telemarketing calls to the landline phone prior to the DNC list. Then both the national DNC list and the Texas DNC list went into effect, we were on both, and the number of telemarketing calls dropped dramatically. I'm much happier for it.
I didn't enter my cell phone number when I joined the DNC list. It isn't getting any telemarketing calls anyway, and telemarketing to cell phones is
illegal according to the TCPA already, so it seemed unnecessary. If I start getting telespam calls to my cell, *then* I'll register it.
The law says that unsolicited telemarketing to cell phones is illegal. The law doesn't say it's illegal only if you are paying for minutes, it just says it's illegal. The telemarketer can argue 'till he's blue in the face, and that won't change the law.
At the same time, like spammers, many telemarketers don't care about the law.
I never put my cell phone on the national (or state) Do Not Call list, because I'm not receiving telemarketing calls to it anyway. I've had 2-3 since I've had it, and I've had it for 4-5 years, I think. If I started receiving telespam, I'd add it to the DNC list.
How many of these people actually WANT Gator on their computer?
Few, if any. However, Claria/Gator isn't being sued by LL Bean. The companies that are being sued are going to argue that Gator is there doing something that these users want, and that the users installed it voluntarily (or at the very least agreed to it in the EULA.) There are currently no laws making spyware illegal.
To me, the spyware issue is completely seperate. This isn't a spyware case, this is a trademark case. And I think that LL Bean should lose. If they win, google is going to be in trouble, as is any other search engine that sells advertising space. Legitimate software that could be designed to help people shop/compare online could be stifled. What if the software was designed to help you be aware of the the business practices of a company you are considering purchasing from, and you had put it there for that reason? A consumer reports/BBB/customer response type of system, for instance. Would that still be wrong? Would that be trademark infringement, which is what LL Bean is suing over?
If people *do* want the software on their computer, then LL Bean has no right to stop that, IMO. That's why I think they will lose this suit, and why I think they should lose.
Spyware is a seperate issue, but they aren't suing Gator, and this suit is not going to outlaw spyware.
Not if you were selling clothes. MS has a trademark on "Windows", but it doesn't keep Home Depot from selling windows. Apple has a trademark on "Apple" which would stop another company from selling a computer named Apple, but it doesn't keep other companies from also using the name, as long as they aren't in a similar/competing business. For instance, Apple Records.
I don't think that you are correct when you say that companies can't mention competitors names in ads. Everyone surely remembers the "Pepsi challenge", for instance.
Similarly, organizations like Consumer Reports will talk about specific companies/products without violating trademark.
The reason companies normally don't mention their competitors is because they want everyone to remember their own brand name, not their competitors.
I agree that the spyware is a different issue than the trademark stuff. And that's why I think LL Bean will lose the case. Note that the article doesn't say they sued Claria, just the companies advertising through Claria.
I'm sure LL Bean doesn't like it that software may tell people who visit their site about competitors sites, or customer complaints, or anything else - but that doesn't make the software illegal, either. So their only argument is trademark infringement. Since nobody is, so far as I know, trying to pretend to *be* LL Bean, I don't think they'll win.
The spyware issue is seperate. To judge the merits of the case, take spyware out of the picture, just to pretend. Hypothethically, lets say you go to www.compareproducts.com, and find that site is set up to tell you about products - and competing products as well. And you enter LL Bean in their search engine, and it gives you info on them, their products, and their competitors. Further, lets assume that the compareproducts.com website is a sponsored site, and that Nordstrom, J.C. Penney, Atkins and Gevalia (the companies mentioend in the lawsuit) are paying to be listed.
Would there be anything wrong with that? If companies are willing to pay to advertise that way, and customers are willing to go to the site and use it to do shopping comparisons, is there a problem? I don't think so. In fact, I suspect that if we looked around, we would find examples of sites that already do this. (Froogle.com? I don't use them, but I think they do something like that.)
Simlarly, if Claria actually wrote software that people *wanted*, if people were installing the software because they knew the software would *help* them, then I would consider that acceptable. It's essentially the same as the website example above, except that people have choosen to use a piece of software to help them when they shop online. I would have no qualms about that, either.
Spyware, however, adds a twist. Most people don't want it there. They don't want extra ads, popups, etc. The spyware guys don't care what people want. They aren't writing their software for the people who will use it - they have to sneak it onto their machine somehow, or people *wouldn't* use it. They write their software for their own purposes - and in the case of Claria, that means showing pop up ads and such. That I do have a problem with - but it has nothing to do with Trademark or this lawsuit.
Once again you're assuming that I'm hiding my e-mail address. I'm not.
In that case, it's getting harvested, and you're getting spam. You can tell me that you get no spam, and don't use a filter, and I'll believe you - but only if you hide that address. If it's public, it will get spammed.
How did businesses get dragged into this?
Because they use email too. It's not just used by individuals.
No where have I ever seen the complaints that the "webmaster@" or "abuse@" accounts are getting spammed out of control.
Register a web site (personal or business) and the address in the WhoIs will end up on spam lists. Stick a "webmaster@" address on a website, it will end up on spam lists. I run a personal domain, just for myself, and I get spam to "abuse@". You can pretend it doesn't happen, but that doesn't change facts.
In short, I don't believe your claims. You claim that you can, and have, put your email out in public and receive no spam. I say that you are lying.
You also pretend that spam all comes because because people gave their address to the spammers. Quote: I simply choose not to send my e-mail address to every vacation offer, free credit report check, home mortgage counselor, customer service registration, and free trial of Super New Cheerios.
I don't give my address out for that kind of crap either. And having a domain, when I do give an address out to a business, it's simple for me to set up a new email address just for them. I log it locally, and if that account starts receiving spam, I know which business sold my address. It's *very rare* for those addresses to receive spam - legitimate businesses don't want that reputation.
But I do receive a lot to addresses harvested from my website, and to an address used in WhoIs.
You can spout off whatever you want in reply. I think I'm done, as your claims are unreasonable, and I don't believe you. So it's unlikely I'll bother to reply - you appear to be trolling.
You were hoping to play me as lonely, weren't you? Hehehehehehe.
No, I'm trying to get you to understand that simply because hiding your email address simply does not work for everyone. There are a large number of reasons that people choose to make their email address public, even when they know that doing so will result in spam.
You act like every business with a web presence is run by fools, which makes you a fool.
You also claim to get no spam yet to be listed in ICQ directories and such. I've used ICQ - so I know that either you are lying, or you get ICQ spam, one of the other.
I don't get spam. It's not my problem. I don't even use a spam filter.
In that case you are just hiding. Spammers can't find your address - but neither can anyone else. If an old friend tried to find you, they couldn't. You can't register a domain name, much less put an "email me" button on it.
Your "solution" is to hide your head in the sand. If that works for you, fine - but quit acting like people who don't hide who they are and how to contact them is stupid.
Slashdot Mirror
Richter claims he isn't spamming. Rlasky claims he isn't spamming. Spammers pretty much always say that. You admit you get spam complaints on a regular basis, and that your list is not confirmed.
It's just because it's regarding adult clubs (read: strip clubs) that it automatically get's seen as spam.
No, that's not true. It's because there are people on your mailing list that do not *want* to be on your mailing list.
I tried to help. You want to continue using unconfirmed addresses and receiving spam complaints. I don't think I can do any good here. Best of luck.
Yes, it is. A lot of people *want* drugs, just like a lot of people *wanted* alcohol back during prohibition. Outlawing something that is popular with large numbers of people is quite difficult.
People do not want spam. A few people want to send spam to everyone else - but the recipients don't want it. Even the spammers don't want their own email boxes full of junk.
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104-5210518.html
Then let me be the first to tell you. CAN-SPAM is likely to make spam worse. It was written by the DMA, designed to legalize their spam runs. It specifically tells companies "It's OK to spam, as long as you do it this way".
However, I'm not the first to say this, by a long shot. Using google, I can find numerous articles to that effect. Here are a few.
http://www.mailutilities.com/news/archive/163/2378 .html e ans_we_can_spam/
http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/43363
http://www.vnunet.com/news/1151902
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/01/09/canspam_m
http://www.wordsoup.com/word/archives/001243.html
There are many more examples.
You are sending both. I would recommend that you seperate your list into two lists. One should contain the addresses that have confirmed they want to be on the list. The other should have the addresses which have not confirmed.
Then you should send one final message to the "unconfirmed" list. Tell them that they are going to be dropped from the list, and that they need to sign up again, and follow the confirmation step. Anyone that doesn't do that doesn't want to be on your list. Once you've sent this final message to them, throw away their email addresses - you have no need for them any more.
I don't expect you to do this - you want to pretend that everyone wants to be on your mailing list, despite the fact that you regularly get spam complaints.
But if you are truely worried about defending yourself, having confirmations for *every* email address in your list will help protect you.
And if you have any morals, you'll feel better once you quit spamming.
I have several public addresses on my website, in WhoIs, etc, which have been there for years. I refuse to kill them off because once everyone starts hiding their email addresses, the spammers have effectively killed off email as a useful tool.
I get 400-500 spams a day, plus bounces where spammers fake my domain when they send their spam.
It takes me very little time to deal with it - as you say, computers work for us.
And you have the gall to claim I'm a luser because I don't do things the way you do? Fuck you! You just keep hiding from spam and pretending it's not a problem. You keep pretending that your way is the only way and everyone who does anything different is a clueless luser. You just keep pretending that you have a clue - but I know better.
By the way - Fuck You, Asswipe.
I call BS. That form, or one very similar to it, has been around for a long time - a lot longer than a few months. It used to get posted on NANAE (news.admin.net-abuse.email) fairly often several years ago.
I hadn't heard about that. That is sad news. There is nothing wrong with the system itself - but I don't like the idea of trying to get everyone to switch to a patented system. Previously I'd supported SPF - I'm not sure I will if he's throwing in with the MS patented system.
Yet the /. headline says :
Sounds like they *are* selling personal info, no?I also said that T-Mobile has sent email spam to me, and I'll stand by that. And that is why I will not do business with them.
SPF makes the system public, instead of protected by patents. That's better for everyone except the company who wants everyone to use their patented system.
My ISP changes from time to time. Recently, DSL became available here, so I switched to DSL. Southwestern Bell is now my ISP. They gave me an SWBell email address. I don't remember what it is (I do have a note someplace) or how to use it. I don't need it. It's probably full of spam by now, since I never clean it out.
My email address is at my domain. My domain doesn't change just because I changed ISP's. Therefore, your claim that for all practical purposes the ISP address is my real identity is just BS.
I'm not surprised that T-Mobile has been selling personal information. They also send email spam, via "affiliates". I'm shopping for a new cell phone (camera phone) to replce my old cell phone, and the spam they sent me kept them from consideration. Never do business with spammers.
You may not trust the DNC list, but my experience is that we received a *lot* of telemarketing calls to the landline phone prior to the DNC list. Then both the national DNC list and the Texas DNC list went into effect, we were on both, and the number of telemarketing calls dropped dramatically. I'm much happier for it.
I didn't enter my cell phone number when I joined the DNC list. It isn't getting any telemarketing calls anyway, and telemarketing to cell phones is illegal according to the TCPA already, so it seemed unnecessary. If I start getting telespam calls to my cell, *then* I'll register it.
No, it's not. Telemarketing to cell phones is already illegal and has been for some time.
The FCC has information on their website.
At the same time, like spammers, many telemarketers don't care about the law.
I never put my cell phone on the national (or state) Do Not Call list, because I'm not receiving telemarketing calls to it anyway. I've had 2-3 since I've had it, and I've had it for 4-5 years, I think. If I started receiving telespam, I'd add it to the DNC list.
Few, if any. However, Claria/Gator isn't being sued by LL Bean. The companies that are being sued are going to argue that Gator is there doing something that these users want, and that the users installed it voluntarily (or at the very least agreed to it in the EULA.) There are currently no laws making spyware illegal.
To me, the spyware issue is completely seperate. This isn't a spyware case, this is a trademark case. And I think that LL Bean should lose. If they win, google is going to be in trouble, as is any other search engine that sells advertising space. Legitimate software that could be designed to help people shop/compare online could be stifled. What if the software was designed to help you be aware of the the business practices of a company you are considering purchasing from, and you had put it there for that reason? A consumer reports/BBB/customer response type of system, for instance. Would that still be wrong? Would that be trademark infringement, which is what LL Bean is suing over?
If people *do* want the software on their computer, then LL Bean has no right to stop that, IMO. That's why I think they will lose this suit, and why I think they should lose.
Spyware is a seperate issue, but they aren't suing Gator, and this suit is not going to outlaw spyware.
I don't. But I don't use IE, either, I use Opera. I haven't seen a pop-up ad in a long time.
Not if you were selling clothes. MS has a trademark on "Windows", but it doesn't keep Home Depot from selling windows. Apple has a trademark on "Apple" which would stop another company from selling a computer named Apple, but it doesn't keep other companies from also using the name, as long as they aren't in a similar/competing business. For instance, Apple Records.
Similarly, organizations like Consumer Reports will talk about specific companies/products without violating trademark.
The reason companies normally don't mention their competitors is because they want everyone to remember their own brand name, not their competitors.
I agree that the spyware is a different issue than the trademark stuff. And that's why I think LL Bean will lose the case. Note that the article doesn't say they sued Claria, just the companies advertising through Claria.
I'm sure LL Bean doesn't like it that software may tell people who visit their site about competitors sites, or customer complaints, or anything else - but that doesn't make the software illegal, either. So their only argument is trademark infringement. Since nobody is, so far as I know, trying to pretend to *be* LL Bean, I don't think they'll win.
The spyware issue is seperate. To judge the merits of the case, take spyware out of the picture, just to pretend. Hypothethically, lets say you go to www.compareproducts.com, and find that site is set up to tell you about products - and competing products as well. And you enter LL Bean in their search engine, and it gives you info on them, their products, and their competitors. Further, lets assume that the compareproducts.com website is a sponsored site, and that Nordstrom, J.C. Penney, Atkins and Gevalia (the companies mentioend in the lawsuit) are paying to be listed.
Would there be anything wrong with that? If companies are willing to pay to advertise that way, and customers are willing to go to the site and use it to do shopping comparisons, is there a problem? I don't think so. In fact, I suspect that if we looked around, we would find examples of sites that already do this. (Froogle.com? I don't use them, but I think they do something like that.)
Simlarly, if Claria actually wrote software that people *wanted*, if people were installing the software because they knew the software would *help* them, then I would consider that acceptable. It's essentially the same as the website example above, except that people have choosen to use a piece of software to help them when they shop online. I would have no qualms about that, either.
Spyware, however, adds a twist. Most people don't want it there. They don't want extra ads, popups, etc. The spyware guys don't care what people want. They aren't writing their software for the people who will use it - they have to sneak it onto their machine somehow, or people *wouldn't* use it. They write their software for their own purposes - and in the case of Claria, that means showing pop up ads and such. That I do have a problem with - but it has nothing to do with Trademark or this lawsuit.
Why is everyone who has differnet needs than you an "extreve fringe case"?
I know the answer - it's because you're a troll slinging bullshit.
In that case, it's getting harvested, and you're getting spam. You can tell me that you get no spam, and don't use a filter, and I'll believe you - but only if you hide that address. If it's public, it will get spammed.
How did businesses get dragged into this?
Because they use email too. It's not just used by individuals. No where have I ever seen the complaints that the "webmaster@" or "abuse@" accounts are getting spammed out of control.
Register a web site (personal or business) and the address in the WhoIs will end up on spam lists. Stick a "webmaster@" address on a website, it will end up on spam lists. I run a personal domain, just for myself, and I get spam to "abuse@". You can pretend it doesn't happen, but that doesn't change facts.
In short, I don't believe your claims. You claim that you can, and have, put your email out in public and receive no spam. I say that you are lying.
You also pretend that spam all comes because because people gave their address to the spammers. Quote: I simply choose not to send my e-mail address to every vacation offer, free credit report check, home mortgage counselor, customer service registration, and free trial of Super New Cheerios.
I don't give my address out for that kind of crap either. And having a domain, when I do give an address out to a business, it's simple for me to set up a new email address just for them. I log it locally, and if that account starts receiving spam, I know which business sold my address. It's *very rare* for those addresses to receive spam - legitimate businesses don't want that reputation.
But I do receive a lot to addresses harvested from my website, and to an address used in WhoIs.
You can spout off whatever you want in reply. I think I'm done, as your claims are unreasonable, and I don't believe you. So it's unlikely I'll bother to reply - you appear to be trolling.
No, I'm trying to get you to understand that simply because hiding your email address simply does not work for everyone. There are a large number of reasons that people choose to make their email address public, even when they know that doing so will result in spam.
You act like every business with a web presence is run by fools, which makes you a fool.
You also claim to get no spam yet to be listed in ICQ directories and such. I've used ICQ - so I know that either you are lying, or you get ICQ spam, one of the other.
I kid you not - spamming bastards hate Spamcop, and are perfectly willing to lie about how SpamCop are the bad guys.
In that case you are just hiding. Spammers can't find your address - but neither can anyone else. If an old friend tried to find you, they couldn't. You can't register a domain name, much less put an "email me" button on it.
Your "solution" is to hide your head in the sand. If that works for you, fine - but quit acting like people who don't hide who they are and how to contact them is stupid.