MS Speaks Out Against New Zealand's Anti Spam Bill 334
out_sp0k1n writes "Ryan Hamlin, head of Microsoft's Technology Care and Safety Group spoke out against New Zealand's proposed anti-spam legislation, warning that it could impinge on 'the amazing vehicle of e-mail marketing'. He also suggests that CAN-SPAM has been effective in deterring spammers. From The Article: 'Though often criticized as too meek, US anti-spam legislation - which relies on people opting out of spam - has proved effective in supporting prosecutions and deterring spammers.' Anyone else think that one message doesn't count as spam?"
CAN-SPAM effective? (Score:5, Interesting)
Can anybody point to any research (or, frankly pundit or blogger) that has concluded that CAN-SPAM has had any effect at all? So far, it sounds like CAN-SPAM has bene "toothless", made "zero impact", etc.
Wonderful Spam (Score:3, Interesting)
In other news, Microsoft sues 235 spammers (Score:1, Interesting)
How would you handle this under anti-spam? (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Someone registers your email at ACME's web site.
2) ACME wants to know if you are legit or not, so they send you a "please click on this link if you really requested this" email.
3) You didn't request email from ACME, but now you have an "are you you?" email from ACME.
Is the "please click on this link" email spam?
If so, what should ACME do to verify you are you instead?
If not, what's to stop a spammer from sending their advert along with the "click to confirm" email? (I know, they already do.)
There's a better idea... (Score:5, Interesting)
Why not create legislation requiring all commercial e-mail to have HOW they got your e-mail address in the first place, under penalty of a huge fine. This would be in addition to any other laws in place. So if someone doesn't say, at the bottom of the e-mail, how or where your e-mail address was obtained, it would be illegal. Also, lying about where they got it would be illegal too.
Or is this just a stupid idea?
Re:How would you handle this under anti-spam? (Score:5, Interesting)
When I followed up with SpamCop they weren't helpful at all, they would not tell me why it happened, who was involved or how I could stop it from happening again. They just labeled my company as one that bought an email list and said to hell with us.
Naturally this wasn't acceptable to me so I moved to their parent company where I actually got some help. I explained to them exactly how we got the email addresses we used and that we understood there was some abuse of the system, so we asked them how to proceed without making the problem worse.The solution was to send out an email blast asking everyone to confirm their wish to be on the list. This would be the only thing we were allowed to ask in the email. No advertising, not even any logos, just a simple plain email with a link to our website. Yes this shrunk our list a little bit but the majority of people on it were customers of ours and wanted to be there.
So yes, if I had mod points I'd mod you up. Its very important not promoting any products. That is the difference between spam and legitimate messaging.Re:Spam is spam (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed. I've lost contact with friends after telling them to stop sending me worthless crap because they're too lazy to understand why they may need an e-mail list of people that want to receiver their worthless crap, rather than just sending it to everyone in their address book. I actually send nasty replies now, especially for 'warnings' that almost always a hoax, and usually 3 or 4 years old at that.
Once I signed up for Hot Mail... got spam instead. (Score:2, Interesting)
I once signed up for a Hot Mail Account, years ago and never used it, never told a sole about it, never shared the email address with anyone, not one person or other... guess what? Within days my inbox was loaded full of Porn and other spam... my guess is that Microsoft fed them my email address and got paid for it.
You can never trust Microsoft. Too greedy. Computers users to them are just cash machines and not private citizens.
M$ is now an arbiter of the democratic process? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Just Curious... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Microsoft follows the money? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:oh, so that's why (Score:2, Interesting)
The thing is, that most of the headers seem to originate in the United States. I mark them as junk and destroy them right away to prevent web-bugs, but when they seem to be persistent I'll run a host and whois, and finally make a complaint to the originating ISP.
Not that it does any good. My own ISP, Earthlink, won't even talk to you unless the spam originated on one of their servers.
At least I'm not getting plastered like I was a few years ago. It seems that my address ended up on a CD or something, because I was getting all this Chinese spam that I couldn't even read (hundreds per day).
Not so bad these days, but it's still a distraction that I don't like.
Michael
Re:Translation: If MSFT doesn't make money on it (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:That's the idea. (Score:5, Interesting)
Couple that with their need for your name and personal details with every product registration, and the default settings of those forms to permit them to advertise at you, and we're seeing a company geared up for bulk marketing under the excuse of "customer notices".
Better ways to present check boxes (Score:5, Interesting)
I think one of the problems with this method at the moment is that most organisations don't provide clear information about exactly what someone can expect by checking the box. Often it's buried somewhere deep within the privacy policy, but it's not exactly obvious.
Before I check such a box, I like to be confident that I understand basic things like:
Most boxes don't actually do this. They just say inane things like "Click here to receive great deals from us and our partners in your email." I'd rather they said something like:
I guess it's a bit more verbose, but to me it's a hell of a lot clearer and more trustworthy. Then again, I realise that most people don't seem to think/care about this type of thing as much as I do. I'm sure I'm not the main target of many marketing people... I just get annoyed as collateral damage.
How to stay relatively spam free (Score:4, Interesting)
Tools Required:
1. A domain that you administer mail accounts for
2. The ability to define a catch-all account for mail
The method:
I have defined my "regular" email address as the catch-all. Whenever a website requests an email address, I use something unique to that site. The account does not exist, but mail from them will still get delivered to me via the catch-all account.
Example:
I sign up for email for my Hilton account with hilton@mydomain.com. The account is not defined but the catch-all will deliver the mail to me nonetheless.
The benefit:
If I start getting spam to that email address, I now have several options. First, I know who sold or gave out my address so I can hammer them if I choose. Second, I can simply begin filtering everything from that address into a "known spam folder" and never have to deal with it other than to delete the contents of that folder. Third, I can setup nasty autoresponders that mimic bounce messages or something on that account if I wish (I know, this may not be doing much good but it's fun).
By doing this I keep the spam in my inbox down to 2 or 3 messages a day.
Denny