If it's from a "partner", name the partner's website and date/time.
If it's from a "partner", then it's spam. Buying and selling lists is just a marketers way of pretending that they aren't spammers - but they are still putting people onto mailing lists without those people asking.
For that, you get modded up to 5, interesting? Jeeze. If I'd have seen it while I had mod points, I'd have stuck "Troll" on it. You sound like you've never played any of their games - or you've never played anything but theirs, so assume everything else is just the same.
Technology, once created, can't be stopped. The music industry hates the fact that digital music can be shared - but all their crying isn't going to keep people from doing it. Some folks hate camera-phones - but that isn't going to make them disappear.
And in the case of RFID, while I can see ways that they can be abused, I also see many ways they can be quite helpful.
Individuals should stay out of the.COM domain as owners in all circumstances, because an individual is not a corporations.
Again, I clearly disagree. You'll notice the homepage listed at the top of my post, for instance. I wanted a domain primarily so that when I move from one provider to another, or my current provider goes belly up, I don't have to change email addresses. I could have choosen something other than.com - but there are no "whitis" companies that I'm familiar with, so I see no conflict. And some day, I may want to start a business. Why should I wait for someone else to register it?
If you have a registered trademark, there's no problem.
Sure. Tell it the girl at to veronica.org, or the boy at pokey.org.
Tell it to
Chip Rosenthal who was sued
by a company named unicom for his unicom.com domain. He had
owned the domain name since 1990. They registered unicom
as a trademark in 1997, started trying to buy his domain in
1998, and sued in December of 2001. He did win the suit, but he had to defend himself in California (where the assholes were located) to do so, and he had to pay the legal bills involved.
Sorry, but having a trademark doesn't make it a clear cut case.
In fact it's quite impossible, unless the allegedly libelous statement is not capable of being spoken or written by humans.
Slander is spoken, not written. To be libel, it has to be written down. That's part of the definition. So, if they can show that you wrote it, then they can sue. You can defend (at least in the US) by showing that what you wrote about them was true - but you still have to defend.
Libel cases almost cannot be won in the United States. The burden of proof is extremely high.
True as far as it goes. But to defend yourself in a libel case, you still have to pay a lawyer, and you still have to defend.
I recently received a Cease and Desist notice from a lawyer working for Rob Martinson who runs mailwiper.com. They claim to be selling an anti-spam tool, but they spammed me multiple times (including after I'd asked them to stop), and they also run spywiper.com - which is known for advertising by sticking spyware on peoples computers and telling them they have to buy spywiper to get rid of it.
The page is currently down, though I expect to have it back up. My point is, though his chances of winning are very small *if* I defend myself, he can drag me to another state, and force me to hire an attorney, simply for telling the truth.
My page was, prior to pulling it down, the 3rd hit on Google for mailwiper - I'm sure he didn't like that. Funny, though, now the #2 hit is for the Center for Democracy and Technology, which has filed FTC complaints about him. I'm pretty sure they already have lawyers lined up, so I doubt he'll get far by making the same threat to them.
What more do you want? Perfection from a program that has to index, store, and search every site on the net? And make it available to millions of people every day, for free? I'm amazed that they can do what they do at all. I'm sure that whoever sells them hardware is making a lot of money.
So, you don't like that "Miserable Failure" brings up, so far as I can tell, either GWBush or MMoore. Who/what do you think it should bring up?
I really don't see this as a problem. Sure, knowing that lots of links using the same keywords means that if enough people all do it, those keywords will point to wherever people choose to point it - google will rank page at the top of the list.
Is it interferring with normal usage of Google? I don't think so. Until I'd heard of the google-bomb, I wouldn't have had any idea of what "miserable failure" would point to - but I can't think of any reason I would have tried that search, either. Until I hear of google-bombs causing a problem (and "I think Brittany Spears is a bigger failure than X" isn't something I consider a problem) then I'm not going to worry about it.
But if you want to fight back, use it against them. Convince enough people to quit pointing Miserable Failure at Bush/Moore and have them try this : Miserable Failure instead. All you have to do is convince everyone else that you are right, and you're set.
Heaven forbid anyone mention the One Holy Company's failures for once...
What? Failures? None, never, ridiculous! Well, except maybe for the original Mac's, which didn't have cursor keys, since everyone wants to take their hands off the keyboard and use the mouse while doing word processing. And going from an open architecture that let geeks roll their own to a close system where you damn near can't program the thing without Approval From Apple(TM)!, which led to a major shortage of software. And... Oh, never mind.
You want every little mom & pop company running a 10 year old mail server to register a new domain and reconfigure their box overnight???
Exactly when is this supposed to happen???
Between 12:01 AM and 6:00 AM, GMT, on April 1st 2004. That gives us a week to get the word out. If each of us emails 5,000 people, and each of those email another 5,000 people, and...
The only real way to stop it all would be a redesign of the protocol from the ground-up and that is just not going to happen...SMTP is already too entrenched into the backbone of the internet...it just won't happen...
There, we disagree. I think it's inevitable. I doubt it'll happen soon, but SMTP as currently implemented has too many problems. Sooner or later, either it gets redesigned or replaced. Soon? I doubt it. But it's just a matter of time.
The receiver gets the money. If you write me, and I respond, we're even. Normal email users would, more or less, break even.
Without getting into who does the administration (apparently for free) or the chances of forgery (incredibly high), I'd like to point out that I receive a lot of emails from discussion lists, newsletters, etc. If those places are required to pay per email, either they pass the cost on to me (and I pay the costs) or they quit sending. SlashDot, for instance, sends a *lot* more outbound email to willing recipients than they receive from those same people.
im sorry, folks, but the only thing that i see ever working is micropayments.
Then you haven't through things through.
In order to use micropayments, in order to even start *trying* to implement micropayments, then you have to be able to say, for sure, who sent the email in question. Currently, spammers fake domains all the time. (Well, not *all* the time - but I'd guess that over 90% of spam has forged information in the "From" line.)
Spammers forge my domain. I'm not going to pay you just because you receive spam purporting to be from whitis.com, and I can't stop them from sending the forgery.
So you have to find a way to verify the sender. SPF looks like the best bet, so far, IMO, though I don't think it's perfect.
Until you can verify the sender, you can't bill anyone. Once you can verify the sender, and *every* legitimate mail server (both on the sending and receiving end) has implemented the system, then you can start billing.
And you already know that spammers will continue to try to screw up the system. They aren't simply going to pay a micropayment for every email sent, they are going to try to fake the info or use a hacked machine to send it, so that someone else, someone innocent, ends up paying their bill.
Of course, someone has to handle the money, do the billing, chase down the deadbeats, and on and on and on... Microsoft wants that job, but I don't think many of the SlashDot crowd are going to be interested in giving MS a penny an email. And nobody is likely to do it out of the goodness of their hearts - their will be too many expenses to do that.
Then, of course, you have other problems - assuming you get that far. How does an end-user say "This is spam"? (Every email client has to be updated to handle that?) How do legitimate mass-mail services (discussion lists, newsletters, NYTimes daily news reports, SlashDot Headlines, and those sort of things) handle paying for every mail they send? And why should they have to?
If you can't see major problems with the micro-payment theory, then you just aren't paying attention.
Couldn't it be a "soft whitelist" until widely adopted? E.g., Everything coming from.mail gets a bonus in my e-mail filtering.
Sure, go ahead. Whitelist everything from *.mail domains. The spammers have never lied to you before, and they won't start forging the From field now...
If they choose to host with a company that tries to infect visitors with spyware, then they have made that choice, and should be held responsible for it.
He's supporting something that has recently been made illegal. (CAN-SPAM)
CAN-SPAM doesn't make spam illegal. In fact, it specifically makes spam legal and overrides any state laws (such as California) which had outlawed spam.
I have no problems with spam as long as it is targeted towards people who may benefit from it.
The people who send the spam decide who to target. They often feel that their product will benefit everyone, so they send to everyone. They often don't know anything about an email address they are sending to except the address - so they send it anyway.
You're "It's OK if it's targetted" theory leaves the spammers in charge, and my mailbox full of junk.
I have no problem with email marketing as long as it is sent to people who opted in. (Really, truely opted in - not "I bought your address from some guy who claims you opted in").
The only legitimate email marketing is confirmed opt in (which the spammers call "double opt in").
Slashdot Mirror
It's possible that everyone who posts to this thread will actually RTFA (or at least look at the pictures) for a change.
If it's from a "partner", then it's spam. Buying and selling lists is just a marketers way of pretending that they aren't spammers - but they are still putting people onto mailing lists without those people asking.
For that, you get modded up to 5, interesting? Jeeze. If I'd have seen it while I had mod points, I'd have stuck "Troll" on it. You sound like you've never played any of their games - or you've never played anything but theirs, so assume everything else is just the same.
And in the case of RFID, while I can see ways that they can be abused, I also see many ways they can be quite helpful.
Is that your site? When I got to the dark red text on a black background, I gave up.
Chip Rosenthal would disagree with you, just like I do.
Individuals should stay out of the .COM domain as owners in all circumstances, because an individual is not a corporations.
Again, I clearly disagree. You'll notice the homepage listed at the top of my post, for instance. I wanted a domain primarily so that when I move from one provider to another, or my current provider goes belly up, I don't have to change email addresses. I could have choosen something other than .com - but there are no "whitis" companies that I'm familiar with, so I see no conflict. And some day, I may want to start a business. Why should I wait for someone else to register it?
Sure. Tell it the girl at to veronica.org, or the boy at pokey.org.
Tell it to Chip Rosenthal who was sued by a company named unicom for his unicom.com domain. He had owned the domain name since 1990. They registered unicom as a trademark in 1997, started trying to buy his domain in 1998, and sued in December of 2001. He did win the suit, but he had to defend himself in California (where the assholes were located) to do so, and he had to pay the legal bills involved.
Sorry, but having a trademark doesn't make it a clear cut case.
Slander is spoken, not written. To be libel, it has to be written down. That's part of the definition. So, if they can show that you wrote it, then they can sue. You can defend (at least in the US) by showing that what you wrote about them was true - but you still have to defend.
True as far as it goes. But to defend yourself in a libel case, you still have to pay a lawyer, and you still have to defend.
I recently received a Cease and Desist notice from a lawyer working for Rob Martinson who runs mailwiper.com. They claim to be selling an anti-spam tool, but they spammed me multiple times (including after I'd asked them to stop), and they also run spywiper.com - which is known for advertising by sticking spyware on peoples computers and telling them they have to buy spywiper to get rid of it.
The page is currently down, though I expect to have it back up. My point is, though his chances of winning are very small *if* I defend myself, he can drag me to another state, and force me to hire an attorney, simply for telling the truth.
My page was, prior to pulling it down, the 3rd hit on Google for mailwiper - I'm sure he didn't like that. Funny, though, now the #2 hit is for the Center for Democracy and Technology, which has filed FTC complaints about him. I'm pretty sure they already have lawyers lined up, so I doubt he'll get far by making the same threat to them.
No, you started trolling and he bit.
What more do you want? Perfection from a program that has to index, store, and search every site on the net? And make it available to millions of people every day, for free? I'm amazed that they can do what they do at all. I'm sure that whoever sells them hardware is making a lot of money.
More information can be found here and here.
I really don't see this as a problem. Sure, knowing that lots of links using the same keywords means that if enough people all do it, those keywords will point to wherever people choose to point it - google will rank page at the top of the list.
Is it interferring with normal usage of Google? I don't think so. Until I'd heard of the google-bomb, I wouldn't have had any idea of what "miserable failure" would point to - but I can't think of any reason I would have tried that search, either. Until I hear of google-bombs causing a problem (and "I think Brittany Spears is a bigger failure than X" isn't something I consider a problem) then I'm not going to worry about it.
But if you want to fight back, use it against them. Convince enough people to quit pointing Miserable Failure at Bush/Moore and have them try this : Miserable Failure instead. All you have to do is convince everyone else that you are right, and you're set.
What? Failures? None, never, ridiculous! Well, except maybe for the original Mac's, which didn't have cursor keys, since everyone wants to take their hands off the keyboard and use the mouse while doing word processing. And going from an open architecture that let geeks roll their own to a close system where you damn near can't program the thing without Approval From Apple(TM)!, which led to a major shortage of software. And... Oh, never mind.
Exactly when is this supposed to happen???
Between 12:01 AM and 6:00 AM, GMT, on April 1st 2004. That gives us a week to get the word out. If each of us emails 5,000 people, and each of those email another 5,000 people, and...
The only real way to stop it all would be a redesign of the protocol from the ground-up and that is just not going to happen...SMTP is already too entrenched into the backbone of the internet...it just won't happen...
There, we disagree. I think it's inevitable. I doubt it'll happen soon, but SMTP as currently implemented has too many problems. Sooner or later, either it gets redesigned or replaced. Soon? I doubt it. But it's just a matter of time.
Without getting into who does the administration (apparently for free) or the chances of forgery (incredibly high), I'd like to point out that I receive a lot of emails from discussion lists, newsletters, etc. If those places are required to pay per email, either they pass the cost on to me (and I pay the costs) or they quit sending. SlashDot, for instance, sends a *lot* more outbound email to willing recipients than they receive from those same people.
BTW, it's OK to call spammers "evil bastards" on /. Everyone will know what you're talking about.
Then you haven't through things through.
In order to use micropayments, in order to even start *trying* to implement micropayments, then you have to be able to say, for sure, who sent the email in question. Currently, spammers fake domains all the time. (Well, not *all* the time - but I'd guess that over 90% of spam has forged information in the "From" line.)
Spammers forge my domain. I'm not going to pay you just because you receive spam purporting to be from whitis.com, and I can't stop them from sending the forgery.
So you have to find a way to verify the sender. SPF looks like the best bet, so far, IMO, though I don't think it's perfect.
Until you can verify the sender, you can't bill anyone. Once you can verify the sender, and *every* legitimate mail server (both on the sending and receiving end) has implemented the system, then you can start billing.
And you already know that spammers will continue to try to screw up the system. They aren't simply going to pay a micropayment for every email sent, they are going to try to fake the info or use a hacked machine to send it, so that someone else, someone innocent, ends up paying their bill.
Of course, someone has to handle the money, do the billing, chase down the deadbeats, and on and on and on... Microsoft wants that job, but I don't think many of the SlashDot crowd are going to be interested in giving MS a penny an email. And nobody is likely to do it out of the goodness of their hearts - their will be too many expenses to do that.
Then, of course, you have other problems - assuming you get that far. How does an end-user say "This is spam"? (Every email client has to be updated to handle that?) How do legitimate mass-mail services (discussion lists, newsletters, NYTimes daily news reports, SlashDot Headlines, and those sort of things) handle paying for every mail they send? And why should they have to?
If you can't see major problems with the micro-payment theory, then you just aren't paying attention.
It's been posted many times for several years, I believe, in news.admin.net-abuse.email.
Sure, go ahead. Whitelist everything from *.mail domains. The spammers have never lied to you before, and they won't start forging the From field now...
If they choose to host with a company that tries to infect visitors with spyware, then they have made that choice, and should be held responsible for it.
Aim about two feet higher, and I think you're on to something.
Here, since you seem a bit on the slow side, let me help. Try visiting www.whitis.com. That's me. I'm not hiding.
CAN-SPAM doesn't make spam illegal. In fact, it specifically makes spam legal and overrides any state laws (such as California) which had outlawed spam.
The people who send the spam decide who to target. They often feel that their product will benefit everyone, so they send to everyone. They often don't know anything about an email address they are sending to except the address - so they send it anyway.
You're "It's OK if it's targetted" theory leaves the spammers in charge, and my mailbox full of junk.
I have no problem with email marketing as long as it is sent to people who opted in. (Really, truely opted in - not "I bought your address from some guy who claims you opted in").
The only legitimate email marketing is confirmed opt in (which the spammers call "double opt in").
However, since I filter anything saying that, doing that is unlikely to end up in my inbox, so it's unlikely that I'll complain about it.