People who have serious spam problems are not very good at dealing with it.
Right now, Eddy Marin, a relatively well known spammer in the US, with a long criminal history, is sending out spam which uses fake addresses at my domain as the sender. (ie, forged in the From line.) I'm implicated, through no fault of my own. He isn't forging my domain on all of his spam, he is also forging other domains. The spams want the recipient to click through to http://69.60.4.240/?p=6062 (the ?p= number changes fairly often, but the IP is a constant.) That ends up resolving at http://www.mypillsrx.com, where they sell various kinds of drugs, writing you a "free prescription" for whatever you buy.
I'm getting the bounces from their crap. So far, I've had no complaints about "whitis.com sending spam", but I know other forged sites that have received those complaints. And the spammer, his upstream, and every place I've tried complaining have been totally non responsive. The spam, and the forgery, continues, even as we hold this discussion.
But the line of cases involving commercial speech makes VERY plain that it is protected speech, and these days is very nearly protected as much as non-commercial speech.
Once again, you prove that the law education you claim to be getting isn't sticking. I've previously posted numerous court rulings to show that your "Commercial speech is protected as free speech and can't be regulated" crap is just crap, but you're so set on defending spammers that you are still posting it.
For those that are prone to believe the KangoIdiot who pretends to know the law, here are some quotes from judges. (Yes, real judges, not psuedo-lawyers like KangaRooSki.)
U.S. Federal Judge Stanley Sporkin:
?[Spammers] have come to court not because their freedom of speech is threatened but because their profits are; to dress up their complaints in First Amendment garb demeans the principles for which the First Amendment stands.?
Chief Justice Berger, U.S. Supreme Court:
?Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit. We 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. The asserted right of a mailer, we repeat, stops at the outer boundary of every person?s domain.?
i will never send another email to a resident of california again. proving that it was "solicited" is way too tough... and i've got to protect myself.
You obviously haven't read the law. It applies to commercial mail. If, as in your example, you send an email to someone critical of their stance, you say you will be fined, but that isn't true.
I also seriously doubt that California plans to file for every UCE - even if it appears at first to qualify. More likely they are going to focus on the big time spammers. If they are hearing thousands of complaints about a particular spammer, that spammer is much more likely to attract their attention.
I don't think it is critical to American's. I know a number of people who know little or nothing about the internet who are doing just fine. And you are correct, someone who doesn't have their next meal should be much more worried about eating than getting a broadband connection. I'm not interested in forcing the net on anyone, or spending money getting it to places where the money can be used in a better way.
At the same time, I still believe that freedom of speech and education and having the knowledge of many many people before you available to you will give you a much, much better chance than if you don't have those same options. Keeping people away from knowledge is good for dictators, and possibly for religious leaders, but it sucks for all of the regular people.
You've named food, water, and shelter as three things with more importance, and I agree. Without those, the ability to dial up is not very important. You claim there are a thousand things more important. Give me 20 that we should work harder on giving them, and I'll believe you. And I'm counting your food, water, shelter as the first three. 17 to go.
If you gave your e-mail to a fake Looney Toons site, do you really think that a spammer is going to send you life insurance spam?
Yes, I know that they will. I've seen it.
I own the whitis.com domain. For awhile, my kids used whitis.com email addresses. They don't any longer. They gave their addresses out to places like disney.com, nikelodeoan.com, nintendo.com, Sega, etc. Those addresses now get spam for viagra, mortgage refinancing, BigPen1zNow, porn, etc. The same kind of garbage the rest of us get.
Spammers DO NOT CARE. It costs them essentially the same amount to mail 1 million addresses as to mail.8 million - or 1.2 million. It would cost them more to try to figure out and track demographics than to just mailbomb everyone. And they trade/sell addresses to each other. Many spammers make their money by selling spamware and addresses, and the more they have to sell, the better. Others promise to deliver your email-ad to however many addresses (all "opt in", of course) and once again, the more addresses they have, the better.
They have no financial interest in protecting our mailbox. Legitimate businesses using postal mail use demographics to try and target their audience. That helps cut down their cost while still getting their ad out in front of their primary target. But spammers don't have to pay for paper and postage, and the easiest thing to do is to just send the crap to every freaking address they can find.
I have an email address which I used to post to the NANAE usenet group several years ago. It wasn't used in the header at all, just my sigline. It was munged in the sigline. It was used for posting to one newsgroup only, the news.admin.net-abuse.email newsgroup. The purpose of that group is to discuss spam/spammers/fighting spam. The spammers manually unmunged that address, and it still gets spam today, years later. They don't care that the recipient hates and reports spam, 'cause it's just another address to them.
You are incredibly optimistic about the spammers work ethic, and the evidence doesn't back it up.
People need food
People need cean water
People need shelter
People don't *need* the Internet.
In that sense, people don't need the internet. In that sense, people don't *need* books or education, either. But having an education and access to books will improve the quality of most peoples lives. It gives them a much higher chance of success. And the internet is another step along that path.
Because of that, the spam e-mails you'll get will vary against the type of spam between Jenny Girl seven year old who gets cartoonie spam while Grumpy Old Man seventy year old will get youth-restoring spam.
You give the spammers far too much credit. They generally don't target demographic groups. They spam every address they can find. They don't care if you are male or female, they'll still send you "Get Big Pen1s asieqa1" spam to your address. They don't care if you're 7 years old or 90+. It would be time consuming for them to actually figure out who you are and try to target you with specific ads. It's much easier (and much less expensive) for them to just throw every advertisement they have at your address.
I think you have to wait, as from what I understand most of the people who spam actually buy spam lists from other people.
I was starting to wonder if anyone was going to point this out. Most spammers don't scrape their own addresses, they buy lists of addresses. So when you stick an address on a website, use it to register a domain name, or post to usenet, it's not going to get a lot of spam in the first day or the first week. Be patient - the spam will start showing up more and more as the first spammers sell the address off, and others resell it, etc.
Some time back I changed the address shown in my domain registration information to "domainreg@" my domain. It took awhile before I saw any spam at all to that address, but it's common now that it's been harvested and sold.
You call me a spammer, but I have never sent an unsolicited message to anyone, so I am going to let that (repeated) insult go for the moment
You have argued that marketers should be able to send unsolicited advertising to email addresses when they have no permission to do so. That is spam. The fact that you are arguing in favor of spam makes you sound like a spammer. (Which is not to say that you are a spammer. I have no idea who you are.) You don't believe you are arguing in favor of spam because you believe that unsolicited email from "legitimate businesses" isn't spam, but it doesn't change the facts.
The incentive legitimate marketers have in carefully trimming their contact lists is to not piss off people or waste time on those who have absolutely no use for the particular product.
Legitimate marketers have overused telemarketing to the point the goverment has now created a Do Not Call list and passed laws forcing marketers to honor it. The term "junk mail" came about because so many "legitimate" offers come in the mail that people consider those offers junk. Both have much higher costs to the marketer than email. Yet you expect me to believe that email marketers will control themselves and it won't be a burdon - if we could just get the pesky scam artists out of the way. Sorry, history doesn't support your argument.
A legit business also doesn't send message after message after message after message, clogging up an email box with multiple messages regarding the same offering. I believe we can agree that is a particularly onerous facet of the spam we both hate.
We can agree that having your inbox filled with repeated offers on the same product is a
major pain. It's the primary reason so many people are upset about spam. Where we disagree
is your belief that I should have to put up with a billion "one time" offers without
complaining. There are a lot of legitimate businesses out there, but they shouldn't email
me unless I ask them to. If just one-tenth of 1% of the legitimate businesses in the US sends
me one email a year, I'll have to dig through a whole bunch of crap I don't want.
Legit businesses do not send email over and over and over. It's a one-hit-and-out. "Opt-in" is an idea that has failed (who's definition of "Opt-in" do you use?). It has already been abused to the point of ridicule. I get a shitload of mail from people who claim I "Opted in" when I clearly know I haven't. Bzzzt. Next suggestion.
Nonsense. Many legitimate businesses send emails once a month, or once a week - some send
them once a day. They send them to customers who want those emails. They don't sign
people up unless the people request it. Those people opt in, and on well run lists, those
people follow a confirmation step (marketers like to call it "double opt in") to verify that
they want to be on the list. Opt in works fine. Your claim that opt in has failed is just
as dishonest as the spammers claims that their spam is sent to an opt in list. Opt in
lists work very well - and the spam you get where people claim you opted in but didn't is
still spam, not mail you requested. Yes, spammers lie. They'll claim a list is opt in.
That doesn't mean that real opt in lists don't work - just that they believe that lying
to people is good marketing. Those same spams that claim to be sent to opt in lists also
tend to use forged headers, misleading subject lines, and fake return addresses. Those
are more lies, just like their opt in claim.
Slashdot sends me an email every day, to inform me of new discussions on the website. They email me when someone replies to one of my articles. I suspect they email you essentially the same way. I receive mail from the NYTimes daily, and Reuters , and others, all because I signed up.
It's opt in. It's permission based. It isn't spam. And it works quite well.
I'm trying to get you to realize that I am not a spammer and am not advocating what is really spam (
There is a large difference between an unsolicited email and what has been come to be known as "spam".
Only to people like you who claim that their unsolicited emails are not spam. Your definitions and the DMA's are pretty much the same - and pretty much different from everyone elses definition.
First off, I did not claim that email to addresses gathered at a tradeshow booth are spam, while other unsolicited messages are not.
Actually, you did. In this message. Your exact words were "Doing this is, technically, spam." You can't seem to understand that messgaes sent to addresses collected at your tradeshow booth are solicited, yet you argue that unsolicted emails are not spam. Very illogical.
this technique (targeted mailing based on demographics) has been used long before the integrated circuit (let alone personal computers and the Internet) existed.
Yes, but the advertiser had to pay the costs of those ads. When you send the email equivilant, you are forcing your advertising costs on other people, and there is little if any incentive to limit your mailings to people who might actually be interested. The cost for sending an extra million emails is negligible, because the costs are carried by the recipients. My mailbox gets flooded because you've decided that I'm part of your "demographic group". No thanks. Pay for your own advertising and leave me out of it unless I ask to hear from you.
What if you add me to your list and I don't want to be there? How do I know which marketers will remove me, which won't, and which will sell off my address after I "opt out" as a known good address? How many "legitimate businesses" do I have to tell "No"? And six months or a year later, when companies I've already opted out from decide to start a new campaign, what keeps them from adding me to their new list?
There are thousands of legitimate businesses which would consider me a possible customer. Grocery stores, restraunts, auto manufacturers, computer and software companies, bookstores, musicstores, and many many more. I don't want their mail over and over. I don't want to spend an hour every day playing opt out.
Some "demographic groups" are quite large. I'm sure the penis enlargement and viagra spammers could argue that most people would like to have a better sex life so they are targetting their group - essentialy everyone. But my mailbox is still full of junk I don't want. I'm interested in computers and software, but I don't want every computer or software company out there emailing me. There are some that I do want to hear from - and I opt in to their lists. That makes it my choice, as it should be. The thousands of marketers out there shouldn't get to choose for me.
In your example of Sun Microsystems, can you show any reason why people who want those emails would not be able to opt in? And email sent to a current customer, which appears to be the situation in you example with Sun, is generally not considered spam.
Third, I have no affiliation with or even personal respect for the DMA. I detest them as much as you do.
Perhaps, but your definition of spam and their definition of spam seem to be the same. I drive a car, but if I haven't done business with GM (giving them my email address as part of that transaction) and I haven't asked them to email me, (by joining a mailing list on their website, for instance) then they shouldn't email me. Saying I'm part of their "demographic group" of people who drive cars doesn't change that. The fact that they are a legitimate company doesn't change that. It's still my mailbox, and I should have control over it.
However, I'm going to try not to respond to your repeated trolling tactics other than to give you this warning: Stop your bullshit, junior, or this conversation ends.
My bullshit? You think you should have the right to decide what goes into my
Again, the large difference between the two (and what separates true spam from a "targeted email campaign") is that one uses a relatively small set of addresses highly likely to be receptive to a single offering, and the other uses a list of addresses without any qualification for multiple hits of random crap.
Bull shit. True spam is unsolicited bulk email. If it is solicited (such as the trade show booth example which you brought up and claim is spam) then it isn't spam. Even if the product is something stupid like penis enlargements or MMF, if you asked for it, it is not spam.
And if you did not ask for it, and some legitimate marketer (such as yourself) decides to force it on you anyway, then it is spam. Even if it is for a legitmate product, sent by an otherwise (outside of the spamming) legitimate company.
The most common definitions are UCE and UBE. Unsolicited Commercial Email or Unsolicited Bulk Email. A few people use UPE - Unsolicted Promotional Email. All, of course, go back to the
fact that it's unsolicited, because that is a major key.
There is another term worth understanding, though not so sommon in use. Consorscience.
consorscience - (L. _consortium_, partnership, + _scientia_, knowledge) n.
1. The act of sharing information known to be relevant, specific, and of
mutual interest to all persons participating, and/or strongly and reasonably
believed to be desirable to each recipient based on a common purpose of
intimacy or shared activities or pastimes, such that a mutually enjoyable
dialogue is likely to ensue between participants.
2. A state of sharing such information.
consorscient - n.
1. One who participates in consorscience. adj.
2. Engaging in consorscience.
3. Having the qualities of mutually interesting information and common purpose inherent in consorscience.
consorscienate - v.
1. to engage or participate in consorscience.
If the mail is consorscient, then the receiver isn't likely to complain, regardless of whether it was solicited - or even if it was bulk. However, it the mail isn't consorscient, if the mail is bulk, and if the mail wasn't solicited, then I see little to defend the "It's not spam" arguement. Just because the marketer hopes that billions of people will want information his great Get Rich Quick program (whether it's legitimate or not) doesn't mean that the sender isn't sending spam when he sends it.
It would be nice if this tool hadn't been spoiled by immature morons.
Morons like you, who claims that emails sent to addresses gathered at a trade show booth are spam, but email sent to people who never asked for it isn't spam, all based on "I, the marketer, thought they would be interested!" You and the DMA want to use the "My unsolicited email isn't spam - it's a legitimate offer" defense.
But making up BS doesn't change the fact that it's spam. You think that you should get to decide. I think that each of the people you email should get to decide for themselves. And if they outvote you, their votes mean more than yours, the poor "legitimate" marketers.
Pay for your own advertising and you can decide. Force me to pay for it, and I get to decide. And so do the other million people you forced your ad on.
WHich is right? Both. I don't know why moderators move junk posts like yours to "interesting". The only thing that is interesting about your post is that it is evidence that you haven't read the fucking article.
The quote below if from the BBC article.
Under the new law, companies will have to get permission from an individual before they can send them an e-mail or text message.
But the regulations do not cover business e-mail addresses, despite some calls for a blanket ban on spam.
The anti-spam group, Spamhaus, has criticised the law for excluding work addresses.
Sending email to people who stopped by your trade booth and gave you their email address isn't spam. They gave you their info, and presumably they wouldn't have given you that info if they did not expect or want to receive your information.
If you give your email address to a company so that they can send you info on, as you say, "penis enlargements, impossible mortgage rates, questionable knock-off drugs or soliciting assistance in moving large sums of money from African banks" then it is not spam when they email you - you signed up.
If they send the same information (whether the garbage about penises and such, or the stuff from the company who had a booth at the trade show) to people who did not ask to be emailed, then it's spam. Spam isn't dependant on the product being legitmate, spam is dependant on whether the sender has permission.
You, like the DMA, want the definition of spam to be "Junk email that other people send - my junk email isn't spam". Sorry, but that isn't how it's been defined.
I much more interesting (IMO) article on solar power can be found at the URL below. It discusses a new technique for making solar cells. It's less efficient than currently available solar cells, but it promises to be much much cheaper, which could make it much more widely available.
OK, this is my last post on the subject, because apparently there are a lot of people too locked into their little mindset to try to understand what I'm saying.
You started off with fuck SPEWS, so I think we understand you just fine.
You say you use ORDB and SBL to block mail - but you seem to feel that every admin has to make the same choice that you make. They don't. They run their systems, just as you run yours, and they make their own choices - you don't get to make their choices.
If an admin wants to do so, he can set up a mailserver and send 550-FuckTheWorldIHateEveryone every time someone tries to connect. His system, his rules. You hate that.
I *have* received bounces from being blacklisted, just as you have. I'm on a dialup, dynamic IP, and sometimes it happens. The spammer is usually long gone by then, but there it is. I cope with it. You seem to feel that people who have decided to use SPEWS on their system shouldn't have the right to bounce *your* mail. But they obviously don't want to talk to you, or they would whitelist your IP. Since you claim to be an admin, you should know that they can do that.
Yes, some legitimate mail will bounce with SPEWS. Some will with ORDB and SBL, too. As I mentioned before, some people are willing to deal with that, and some are not. SPEWS doesn't make them, and they don't pretend that there are no IP's listed which don't send spam. They are very upfront about that.
I don't use SPEWS myself - it's not my choice. But I wouldn't take away someone elses choice just because I don't like it. You would, which is why you and your friends are running around screaming "Fuck SPEWS" and running DDOS attacks.
It still comes down to the fact that I can't send email to anyone with a SPEWS-crippled mailserver - not because of my sins, or my ISP's sins, or even their upstream's regional office's sins, but because of the old actions of someone in another part of my continent.
You just can't seem to grasp that anyone running what you call a SPEWS-crippled mailserver has decided that they don't want to talk to you. Like the spammers, you don't feel that they should have a right to say "No, go away".
SPEWS doesn't force themselves on anyone. They publish a list, kind of like Consumer Reports. An admin can configure his machine to use that list, or not to use that list. There are a number of other lists available, or you can use none at all, or you can create your own. That's up to the admin.
Different people have different standards. Some are willing to risk losing some legitimate email because they feel the benefits of getting rid of a *lot* of the crap outweighs the value of those emails. Others don't feel that way. The guy that owns the server makes the rules. You're mad because you don't get to make the rules for servers that you do not own. Funny how that works.
I was eating dinner wiht a friend and she told me in VERY strong terms that spam would "never go away" and as a business practice it works great and she supports it. She said in her company's case they "send" out their marketing material to harvested emails that are sold to them froma third party.
Some friend. Do me a favor - tell her to go fuck herself with an uzi.
Commercial speech has been acquiring more and more parity with regards to first amendment protections for decades.
Yeah. That Do Not Call law is just a government coverup for giving more first amendment protection to the telemarketers. How silly of us not to have noticed.
I rememeber you. You're the guy that claims that spam doesn't cost anyone anything. You also pretend to be a lawyer, but can't understand even the basics of the law. I'm betting your a DMA puppet.
I don't bounce mail based on SPEWS or any blacklist - but I do use several blacklists to help cull the chaff from the wheat. I still get a chance to glance through the headers before all the junk gets tossed. I do that because I'm not willing to throw away any legitimate mail if I can help it. I'm sure I do miss some, now and then, because it's hidden in the middle of all the spam and comes from a blacklisted site.
You, of course, blame SPEWS and the other blacklists. I blame the spammers who keep sending the same crap day after day. You probably blame child abuse and drunk driving on the police, not the people who actually do it.
What about people who pay nothing for their Internet connection - they only have to look at banner ads to support the service? Does spam cost them anything? What if the Internet became free for everyone. Would the spammers then have a right to send their junk?
If the spammers are not paying the cost, then it doesn't matter if you pay for it, or JUNO or whatever freebie service you are using. They are still forcing their advertising cost on someone else. They are still wasting peoples time. They are still ruining email.
The cost of the internet will *never* be free to everybody. Someone is paying for it. You may use the internet at school - but that doesn't mean the school doesn't pay for the storage space and bandwidth. Or at work, in which case your company pays the bills. Or you may have an account with an ISP, in which case the ISP passes on thoses higher costs directly to you. Even if you use a freebie service, the bandwidth, storage, and servers aren't free, and spam is still someones unwanted advertising which is being paid for by the recipients. Any discussion about "What if the internet was free for everybody?" is pointless. It isn't free for everybody, and it never will be. Just because your momma pays your bills doesn't mean they don't get paid.
Also, the cost of deleting the spam is similar to the cost of sorting through physical junk mail and flyers (though much greater for most people).
The cost is similar, though much greater for most people? Brilliant analysis, though I don't seem to understand what you're trying to get at.
This case wasn't about spyware. This case was about UHaul trying to keep competitors from advertising to their customers. The judge was correct in his ruling, and pretending that the ruling was about something completely different doesn't change the facts.
Slashdot Mirror
Right now, Eddy Marin, a relatively well known spammer in the US, with a long criminal history, is sending out spam which uses fake addresses at my domain as the sender. (ie, forged in the From line.) I'm implicated, through no fault of my own. He isn't forging my domain on all of his spam, he is also forging other domains. The spams want the recipient to click through to http://69.60.4.240/?p=6062 (the ?p= number changes fairly often, but the IP is a constant.) That ends up resolving at http://www.mypillsrx.com, where they sell various kinds of drugs, writing you a "free prescription" for whatever you buy.
I'm getting the bounces from their crap. So far, I've had no complaints about "whitis.com sending spam", but I know other forged sites that have received those complaints. And the spammer, his upstream, and every place I've tried complaining have been totally non responsive. The spam, and the forgery, continues, even as we hold this discussion.
I have a web page about it at http://www.whitis.com/mypillsrx.htm.
According to you, this is all my fault, because I'm "just not good at dealing with it." You just have no clue about the havoc that spammers cause.
Just because hiding your email address and using throwaway hotmail addresses works for you doesn't mean it's an option for everyone.
Once again, you prove that the law education you claim to be getting isn't sticking. I've previously posted numerous court rulings to show that your "Commercial speech is protected as free speech and can't be regulated" crap is just crap, but you're so set on defending spammers that you are still posting it.
For those that are prone to believe the KangoIdiot who pretends to know the law, here are some quotes from judges. (Yes, real judges, not psuedo-lawyers like KangaRooSki.)
U.S. Federal Judge Stanley Sporkin:
?[Spammers] have come to court not because their freedom of speech is threatened but because their profits are; to dress up their complaints in First Amendment garb demeans the principles for which the First Amendment stands.?
Chief Justice Berger, U.S. Supreme Court:
?Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit. We 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. The asserted right of a mailer, we repeat, stops at the outer boundary of every person?s domain.?
You obviously haven't read the law. It applies to commercial mail. If, as in your example, you send an email to someone critical of their stance, you say you will be fined, but that isn't true.
I also seriously doubt that California plans to file for every UCE - even if it appears at first to qualify. More likely they are going to focus on the big time spammers. If they are hearing thousands of complaints about a particular spammer, that spammer is much more likely to attract their attention.
> We can say that we were all on our way to the grocery, made a wrong turn, and ended up at his house.
It's the ultimate flash mob...
At the same time, I still believe that freedom of speech and education and having the knowledge of many many people before you available to you will give you a much, much better chance than if you don't have those same options. Keeping people away from knowledge is good for dictators, and possibly for religious leaders, but it sucks for all of the regular people.
You've named food, water, and shelter as three things with more importance, and I agree. Without those, the ability to dial up is not very important. You claim there are a thousand things more important. Give me 20 that we should work harder on giving them, and I'll believe you. And I'm counting your food, water, shelter as the first three. 17 to go.
Yes, I know that they will. I've seen it.
I own the whitis.com domain. For awhile, my kids used whitis.com email addresses. They don't any longer. They gave their addresses out to places like disney.com, nikelodeoan.com, nintendo.com, Sega, etc. Those addresses now get spam for viagra, mortgage refinancing, BigPen1zNow, porn, etc. The same kind of garbage the rest of us get.
Spammers DO NOT CARE. It costs them essentially the same amount to mail 1 million addresses as to mail .8 million - or 1.2 million. It would cost them more to try to figure out and track demographics than to just mailbomb everyone. And they trade/sell addresses to each other. Many spammers make their money by selling spamware and addresses, and the more they have to sell, the better. Others promise to deliver your email-ad to however many addresses (all "opt in", of course) and once again, the more addresses they have, the better.
They have no financial interest in protecting our mailbox. Legitimate businesses using postal mail use demographics to try and target their audience. That helps cut down their cost while still getting their ad out in front of their primary target. But spammers don't have to pay for paper and postage, and the easiest thing to do is to just send the crap to every freaking address they can find.
I have an email address which I used to post to the NANAE usenet group several years ago. It wasn't used in the header at all, just my sigline. It was munged in the sigline. It was used for posting to one newsgroup only, the news.admin.net-abuse.email newsgroup. The purpose of that group is to discuss spam/spammers/fighting spam. The spammers manually unmunged that address, and it still gets spam today, years later. They don't care that the recipient hates and reports spam, 'cause it's just another address to them.
You are incredibly optimistic about the spammers work ethic, and the evidence doesn't back it up.
People need cean water
People need shelter
People don't *need* the Internet.
In that sense, people don't need the internet. In that sense, people don't *need* books or education, either. But having an education and access to books will improve the quality of most peoples lives. It gives them a much higher chance of success. And the internet is another step along that path.
You give the spammers far too much credit. They generally don't target demographic groups. They spam every address they can find. They don't care if you are male or female, they'll still send you "Get Big Pen1s asieqa1" spam to your address. They don't care if you're 7 years old or 90+. It would be time consuming for them to actually figure out who you are and try to target you with specific ads. It's much easier (and much less expensive) for them to just throw every advertisement they have at your address.
I was starting to wonder if anyone was going to point this out. Most spammers don't scrape their own addresses, they buy lists of addresses. So when you stick an address on a website, use it to register a domain name, or post to usenet, it's not going to get a lot of spam in the first day or the first week. Be patient - the spam will start showing up more and more as the first spammers sell the address off, and others resell it, etc.
Some time back I changed the address shown in my domain registration information to "domainreg@" my domain. It took awhile before I saw any spam at all to that address, but it's common now that it's been harvested and sold.
You have argued that marketers should be able to send unsolicited advertising to email addresses when they have no permission to do so. That is spam. The fact that you are arguing in favor of spam makes you sound like a spammer. (Which is not to say that you are a spammer. I have no idea who you are.) You don't believe you are arguing in favor of spam because you believe that unsolicited email from "legitimate businesses" isn't spam, but it doesn't change the facts.
The incentive legitimate marketers have in carefully trimming their contact lists is to not piss off people or waste time on those who have absolutely no use for the particular product.
Legitimate marketers have overused telemarketing to the point the goverment has now created a Do Not Call list and passed laws forcing marketers to honor it. The term "junk mail" came about because so many "legitimate" offers come in the mail that people consider those offers junk. Both have much higher costs to the marketer than email. Yet you expect me to believe that email marketers will control themselves and it won't be a burdon - if we could just get the pesky scam artists out of the way. Sorry, history doesn't support your argument.
A legit business also doesn't send message after message after message after message, clogging up an email box with multiple messages regarding the same offering. I believe we can agree that is a particularly onerous facet of the spam we both hate.
We can agree that having your inbox filled with repeated offers on the same product is a major pain. It's the primary reason so many people are upset about spam. Where we disagree is your belief that I should have to put up with a billion "one time" offers without complaining. There are a lot of legitimate businesses out there, but they shouldn't email me unless I ask them to. If just one-tenth of 1% of the legitimate businesses in the US sends me one email a year, I'll have to dig through a whole bunch of crap I don't want.
Legit businesses do not send email over and over and over. It's a one-hit-and-out. "Opt-in" is an idea that has failed (who's definition of "Opt-in" do you use?). It has already been abused to the point of ridicule. I get a shitload of mail from people who claim I "Opted in" when I clearly know I haven't. Bzzzt. Next suggestion.
Nonsense. Many legitimate businesses send emails once a month, or once a week - some send them once a day. They send them to customers who want those emails. They don't sign people up unless the people request it. Those people opt in, and on well run lists, those people follow a confirmation step (marketers like to call it "double opt in") to verify that they want to be on the list. Opt in works fine. Your claim that opt in has failed is just as dishonest as the spammers claims that their spam is sent to an opt in list. Opt in lists work very well - and the spam you get where people claim you opted in but didn't is still spam, not mail you requested. Yes, spammers lie. They'll claim a list is opt in. That doesn't mean that real opt in lists don't work - just that they believe that lying to people is good marketing. Those same spams that claim to be sent to opt in lists also tend to use forged headers, misleading subject lines, and fake return addresses. Those are more lies, just like their opt in claim.
Slashdot sends me an email every day, to inform me of new discussions on the website. They email me when someone replies to one of my articles. I suspect they email you essentially the same way. I receive mail from the NYTimes daily, and Reuters , and others, all because I signed up.
It's opt in. It's permission based. It isn't spam. And it works quite well.
I'm trying to get you to realize that I am not a spammer and am not advocating what is really spam (
Only to people like you who claim that their unsolicited emails are not spam. Your definitions and the DMA's are pretty much the same - and pretty much different from everyone elses definition.
First off, I did not claim that email to addresses gathered at a tradeshow booth are spam, while other unsolicited messages are not.
Actually, you did. In this message. Your exact words were "Doing this is, technically, spam." You can't seem to understand that messgaes sent to addresses collected at your tradeshow booth are solicited, yet you argue that unsolicted emails are not spam. Very illogical.
this technique (targeted mailing based on demographics) has been used long before the integrated circuit (let alone personal computers and the Internet) existed.
Yes, but the advertiser had to pay the costs of those ads. When you send the email equivilant, you are forcing your advertising costs on other people, and there is little if any incentive to limit your mailings to people who might actually be interested. The cost for sending an extra million emails is negligible, because the costs are carried by the recipients. My mailbox gets flooded because you've decided that I'm part of your "demographic group". No thanks. Pay for your own advertising and leave me out of it unless I ask to hear from you.
What if you add me to your list and I don't want to be there? How do I know which marketers will remove me, which won't, and which will sell off my address after I "opt out" as a known good address? How many "legitimate businesses" do I have to tell "No"? And six months or a year later, when companies I've already opted out from decide to start a new campaign, what keeps them from adding me to their new list?
There are thousands of legitimate businesses which would consider me a possible customer. Grocery stores, restraunts, auto manufacturers, computer and software companies, bookstores, musicstores, and many many more. I don't want their mail over and over. I don't want to spend an hour every day playing opt out.
Some "demographic groups" are quite large. I'm sure the penis enlargement and viagra spammers could argue that most people would like to have a better sex life so they are targetting their group - essentialy everyone. But my mailbox is still full of junk I don't want. I'm interested in computers and software, but I don't want every computer or software company out there emailing me. There are some that I do want to hear from - and I opt in to their lists. That makes it my choice, as it should be. The thousands of marketers out there shouldn't get to choose for me.
In your example of Sun Microsystems, can you show any reason why people who want those emails would not be able to opt in? And email sent to a current customer, which appears to be the situation in you example with Sun, is generally not considered spam.
Third, I have no affiliation with or even personal respect for the DMA. I detest them as much as you do.
Perhaps, but your definition of spam and their definition of spam seem to be the same. I drive a car, but if I haven't done business with GM (giving them my email address as part of that transaction) and I haven't asked them to email me, (by joining a mailing list on their website, for instance) then they shouldn't email me. Saying I'm part of their "demographic group" of people who drive cars doesn't change that. The fact that they are a legitimate company doesn't change that. It's still my mailbox, and I should have control over it.
However, I'm going to try not to respond to your repeated trolling tactics other than to give you this warning: Stop your bullshit, junior, or this conversation ends.
My bullshit? You think you should have the right to decide what goes into my
Bull shit. True spam is unsolicited bulk email. If it is solicited (such as the trade show booth example which you brought up and claim is spam) then it isn't spam. Even if the product is something stupid like penis enlargements or MMF, if you asked for it, it is not spam.
And if you did not ask for it, and some legitimate marketer (such as yourself) decides to force it on you anyway, then it is spam. Even if it is for a legitmate product, sent by an otherwise (outside of the spamming) legitimate company.
The most common definitions are UCE and UBE. Unsolicited Commercial Email or Unsolicited Bulk Email. A few people use UPE - Unsolicted Promotional Email. All, of course, go back to the fact that it's unsolicited, because that is a major key.
There is another term worth understanding, though not so sommon in use. Consorscience.
consorscience - (L. _consortium_, partnership, + _scientia_, knowledge) n.
1. The act of sharing information known to be relevant, specific, and of mutual interest to all persons participating, and/or strongly and reasonably believed to be desirable to each recipient based on a common purpose of intimacy or shared activities or pastimes, such that a mutually enjoyable dialogue is likely to ensue between participants.
2. A state of sharing such information.
consorscient - n.
1. One who participates in consorscience. adj.
2. Engaging in consorscience.
3. Having the qualities of mutually interesting information and common purpose inherent in consorscience.
consorscienate - v.
1. to engage or participate in consorscience.
If the mail is consorscient, then the receiver isn't likely to complain, regardless of whether it was solicited - or even if it was bulk. However, it the mail isn't consorscient, if the mail is bulk, and if the mail wasn't solicited, then I see little to defend the "It's not spam" arguement. Just because the marketer hopes that billions of people will want information his great Get Rich Quick program (whether it's legitimate or not) doesn't mean that the sender isn't sending spam when he sends it.
It would be nice if this tool hadn't been spoiled by immature morons.
Morons like you, who claims that emails sent to addresses gathered at a trade show booth are spam, but email sent to people who never asked for it isn't spam, all based on "I, the marketer, thought they would be interested!" You and the DMA want to use the "My unsolicited email isn't spam - it's a legitimate offer" defense.
But making up BS doesn't change the fact that it's spam. You think that you should get to decide. I think that each of the people you email should get to decide for themselves. And if they outvote you, their votes mean more than yours, the poor "legitimate" marketers.
Pay for your own advertising and you can decide. Force me to pay for it, and I get to decide. And so do the other million people you forced your ad on.
The quote below if from the BBC article.
Under the new law, companies will have to get permission from an individual before they can send them an e-mail or text message.
But the regulations do not cover business e-mail addresses, despite some calls for a blanket ban on spam.
The anti-spam group, Spamhaus, has criticised the law for excluding work addresses.
Sending email to people who stopped by your trade booth and gave you their email address isn't spam. They gave you their info, and presumably they wouldn't have given you that info if they did not expect or want to receive your information.
If you give your email address to a company so that they can send you info on, as you say, "penis enlargements, impossible mortgage rates, questionable knock-off drugs or soliciting assistance in moving large sums of money from African banks" then it is not spam when they email you - you signed up.
If they send the same information (whether the garbage about penises and such, or the stuff from the company who had a booth at the trade show) to people who did not ask to be emailed, then it's spam. Spam isn't dependant on the product being legitmate, spam is dependant on whether the sender has permission.
You, like the DMA, want the definition of spam to be "Junk email that other people send - my junk email isn't spam". Sorry, but that isn't how it's been defined.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/solarcell-03e.html
Spammers, porn pushers, and you all hate SPEWS. That's nice company your keeping. Your mom will be proud.
You started off with fuck SPEWS, so I think we understand you just fine.
You say you use ORDB and SBL to block mail - but you seem to feel that every admin has to make the same choice that you make. They don't. They run their systems, just as you run yours, and they make their own choices - you don't get to make their choices.
If an admin wants to do so, he can set up a mailserver and send 550-FuckTheWorldIHateEveryone every time someone tries to connect. His system, his rules. You hate that.
I *have* received bounces from being blacklisted, just as you have. I'm on a dialup, dynamic IP, and sometimes it happens. The spammer is usually long gone by then, but there it is. I cope with it. You seem to feel that people who have decided to use SPEWS on their system shouldn't have the right to bounce *your* mail. But they obviously don't want to talk to you, or they would whitelist your IP. Since you claim to be an admin, you should know that they can do that.
Yes, some legitimate mail will bounce with SPEWS. Some will with ORDB and SBL, too. As I mentioned before, some people are willing to deal with that, and some are not. SPEWS doesn't make them, and they don't pretend that there are no IP's listed which don't send spam. They are very upfront about that.
I don't use SPEWS myself - it's not my choice. But I wouldn't take away someone elses choice just because I don't like it. You would, which is why you and your friends are running around screaming "Fuck SPEWS" and running DDOS attacks.
You just can't seem to grasp that anyone running what you call a SPEWS-crippled mailserver has decided that they don't want to talk to you. Like the spammers, you don't feel that they should have a right to say "No, go away".
SPEWS doesn't force themselves on anyone. They publish a list, kind of like Consumer Reports. An admin can configure his machine to use that list, or not to use that list. There are a number of other lists available, or you can use none at all, or you can create your own. That's up to the admin.
Different people have different standards. Some are willing to risk losing some legitimate email because they feel the benefits of getting rid of a *lot* of the crap outweighs the value of those emails. Others don't feel that way. The guy that owns the server makes the rules. You're mad because you don't get to make the rules for servers that you do not own. Funny how that works.
Some friend. Do me a favor - tell her to go fuck herself with an uzi.
Yeah. That Do Not Call law is just a government coverup for giving more first amendment protection to the telemarketers. How silly of us not to have noticed.
I rememeber you. You're the guy that claims that spam doesn't cost anyone anything. You also pretend to be a lawyer, but can't understand even the basics of the law. I'm betting your a DMA puppet.
Right after you assholes quit spamming.
I don't bounce mail based on SPEWS or any blacklist - but I do use several blacklists to help cull the chaff from the wheat. I still get a chance to glance through the headers before all the junk gets tossed. I do that because I'm not willing to throw away any legitimate mail if I can help it. I'm sure I do miss some, now and then, because it's hidden in the middle of all the spam and comes from a blacklisted site.
You, of course, blame SPEWS and the other blacklists. I blame the spammers who keep sending the same crap day after day. You probably blame child abuse and drunk driving on the police, not the people who actually do it.
or really hate freedom.
Yeah. I hate the idea of having the freedom to use my email account, which I pay for, for purposes that I choose.
Sorry, but I don't give a shit about the "freedom" of con men and porno-pushers who want to shove their crap into my mailbox 100+ times a day.
Your idea of freedom sucks, because it means that I have no rights.
If the spammers are not paying the cost, then it doesn't matter if you pay for it, or JUNO or whatever freebie service you are using. They are still forcing their advertising cost on someone else. They are still wasting peoples time. They are still ruining email.
The cost of the internet will *never* be free to everybody. Someone is paying for it. You may use the internet at school - but that doesn't mean the school doesn't pay for the storage space and bandwidth. Or at work, in which case your company pays the bills. Or you may have an account with an ISP, in which case the ISP passes on thoses higher costs directly to you. Even if you use a freebie service, the bandwidth, storage, and servers aren't free, and spam is still someones unwanted advertising which is being paid for by the recipients. Any discussion about "What if the internet was free for everybody?" is pointless. It isn't free for everybody, and it never will be. Just because your momma pays your bills doesn't mean they don't get paid.
Also, the cost of deleting the spam is similar to the cost of sorting through physical junk mail and flyers (though much greater for most people).
The cost is similar, though much greater for most people? Brilliant analysis, though I don't seem to understand what you're trying to get at.
This case wasn't about spyware. This case was about UHaul trying to keep competitors from advertising to their customers. The judge was correct in his ruling, and pretending that the ruling was about something completely different doesn't change the facts.