Fight Spam

[djesterrh]

"The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it."
-Alan SaportaI went to bed last night a little later that I use to, I was at a writing meeting with my friend Dave (hoping to pitch a TV show). So I got home and I quickly scurried of to bed, just a I was about to reach the blissfulness of complete sleep my blackberry goes off. I was now

Comments

I Call....

[mcamino]

..Bullshit. I run a Internet Service provider and i can tell you from my own first hand(Read: I know WTF i am talking about) experience, that spam is a real pain in the ass but Clicking that remove me link works 95% of the time. That old-wives tail about "it confirms you id blah blah blah" is old and not true. The spammers have 1 of 2 goals in mind. 1) STEAL YOUR IDENTIY/MONEY FROM YOUR "ORDER" 2) Sell you shit you dont want. Now with #1 it suck to be you if you are stupid enough order something from them (read: full frontal labotomy) but with #2 they are not stupid. unlike telemarketers spam is not profitable. Spammers usally will HONOR your request for a simular reason telemarkets will. THERE IS A COST TO SPAMMING. Now before you go off on a tanget let me explain. If you have a spam relay and you have lets say 1 hour to send 1 million messages would you delibertly send messages to people who you know will not buy your shit or take them out of the list and use their "spot in que" to send to someone new/stupid enough. In the end it benefits them to take you out. Plus if you spend the time to fill out their usally 2 question form, you probilly are pissed enough to track their ass down and cause havok. (Read: What i do for kicks between 1am and 7am to spammers who spam my corporate E-mail accounts with V!agra ads) so they take you out ot advoid trouble.

there are a small amount of spammers who do not listen to those honor requests and will spam you more. the answer to them is simple. It is already ILLEGAL in the USA. Can Spam law.(which some say is useless, but i find it is very profitable for my business to use, especially since my lawyers are on salary so the more lawsuits i give them the better return on investment i get on their salaries.(I am a sick fuck to think of lawyers as my 2nd best sales team arn't i? :::Evil laugh::) Trust me, me and other ISPs hate spam as much as you do, but i can tell you the dishonest ones (that do what you claim) are becoming more and more rare because us small ISP's are slowing putting the illegal spammers out of business. (See following url for the most recent Win for Isp'S http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/01/05/1643220)

Re: I Call....

[jaborla]

When you unsubscribe to a list, the company that is sending you the list has to remove you from the list. But there is no rule/law/anything that keeps them from then putting your now-confirmed e-mail addy on more lists that they own or are selling.

Re: I Call....

[djesterrh]

That is the problem that, they stop sending you their e-mail and you end up on somone elses list. I once had an eperiment here at work to show the effects of spam. I signed up with 1 site (that I knew would spam me), for 1 month I constantly clicked the unsubscribe me button, and after a short period of time (1 month) I went from 1 company spaming me to over 100 now craming my e-mail box once a day. Why company A honors my request, the sell to company "B", "C" and so on. There are more companies(some fly by night) than I can unsubscribe to.

Re: I Call....

[mcamino]

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/canspam.htm

that is from the Federal Trade Commision notice the 2nd part that says

Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your commercial email. When you receive an opt-out request, the law gives you 10 business days to stop sending email to the requestor's email address. You cannot help another entity send email to that address, or have another entity send email on your behalf to that address. Finally, it's illegal for you to sell or transfer the email addresses of people who choose not to receive your email, even in the form of a mailing list, unless you transfer the addresses so another entity can comply with the law.

Bold Emphasis mine. It is illegal, and it is FEDERAL LAW (not some bullshit city or state law) There is a funny/ironic footnote to this. The new bankruptcy law that took into effect in october 2005 made it nearly impossible to discharge lawsuits as part of ANY bankruptcy. Meaning, When i sue a person or company they can not turn around and declare bankruptcy to advoid paying it. The law helps credit card companies alot but this also helps me since so far 1 stupid spammer have tried to declare bankruptcy after i sued and won and the bankruptcy court said "sorry new rules, you will be paying this for the next 7-10 years minimal"