Online Marketers to Stamp out Spam? 263
CodeHog writes "A group of online marketers want to get rid of spam and are proposing a registry base system for transmitting email. They are calling the project Lumos. Computer World has an aritcle on it Online marketers offer new antispam initiative
. Doesn't it seem like these are the same businesses that profit from spam? Even better, this is being proposed by ESPC. The member list doesn't look too anti-spam to me." The obvious issue of course is that most spammers won't follow the rules anyway. My spam is up 20% over the 1st quarter of 2003! Yay!
Yes, let's hand email over to marketers (Score:5, Funny)
Re:You are a fucking moron (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yes, let's hand email over to marketers (Score:2)
Like this is going to save the world (Score:5, Insightful)
Go calculate [webcalc.net] something
Re:Like this is going to save the world (Score:2)
Yeah. There is a company [habeas.com] that tried a copyrighted Haiku which you could filter on as a guarantee that your mail message was not spam. The trouble is, the only people that use it are the spammers.
Re:Not exactly spam... (Score:2)
In some cases, it's not. HarrisDirect has spammed people before. In your case it's not spam (you gave consent), but in others it is.
Re:Like this is going to save the world (Score:5, Insightful)
The only way to stop spam is either re-work SMTP or intellegent spam filters... Its hard to knock spam filters nowadays... They are almost artificial intelligence in their ability to spot a spam e-mail. Its amazing... Try a good one like iHateSpam [ihatespam.com] and see... They remove close to 99% of spam.
I predict the first self-aware system will not be a 2001 HAL-like supercomputer, but a spam filter running on someones desktop.
"What are you doing Dave? How about a lower mortgage rate, Dave?"
Re:Like this is going to save the world (Score:2)
As a side note, has anyone ever managed to buy a domain off Ultimate Search? They swiped an expired domain I had my eye on.
Re:Like this is going to save the world (Score:4, Funny)
"What are you doing Dave? How about a lower mortgage rate, Dave?"
Dave, I've been meaning to talk to you. I don't think you are pleasing her as much as you could. If you would increase your penis size, Dave, I believe this girl would like to meet you. Here is a video...
Re:Like this is going to save the world (Score:5, Insightful)
Few people are advocating any longer sending mass emails to everyone they can find an address for. Most people have found that using legitimate sources of addresses (such as your customer list, trade-show lists, and small targetted lists) get great results that customers are willing to pay for.
These people are usually sending out up to 10,000 emails at a time.
The professionals involved _want_ email marketing to be legitimate - because it gets higher-dollar business for them.
Re:Like this is going to save the world (Score:3, Interesting)
We send them text only, one page only, very quick bullets with links in plain text. The real newsletter is on the site, and we just use the email to say hi and direct them to the site. We explain why we do it this way in the email. We get a great response, good feedback, and less than 1% unsubscribe per cycle. We go out of our way to be and look responsible. Each email has an opt out link and our toll free phone number, that is answered by
Re:Like this is going to save the world (Score:2)
1) if there's a public list of direct-email sites somewhere, great...instant blacklist. Let them make a list. I'm all for it.
2) The only *real* way to fix the unscrupulous spam problem is to make it no longer pay. To that end, I'm seriously considering writing a script that will fill spammers' order databases with bogus orders (and will do so through anonymous proxies like Peekabooty). My only concern right now is that it's probably fraud, so I'm hesitating.
Re:Like this is going to save the world (Score:2)
It's a ploy by the mainsleaze spammers to legitimize their spam because the scammers and porn peddlers give all UCE such a bad name. This might provide some relief from the scams, porn, Viagra, and penis enlargement spam, but potentially opens the floodgates for just about everything else.
How to do this for real (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:How to do this for real (Score:2)
Spam up 20% (Score:5, Funny)
So how can I get spam futures into my portfolio? Something going up 20% a quarter is just what the stockbroker ordered!
Re:Spam up 20% (Score:2)
Turn $25 into $500,000 in 6 months (Score:5, Funny)
You may have seen this business before and
ignored it. I know I did - many times! However,
please take a few moments to read this letter.
I was amazed when the profit potential of this
business finally sunk in... and it works!
With easy-to-use e-mail tools and opt-in e-mail,
success in this business is now fast, easy and
well within the capabilities of ordinary people
who know little about internet marketing. And the
earnings potential is truly staggering!
Send me $25 and I'll send you the tools.
Incredibly intuitive notion (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Incredibly intuitive notion (Score:2)
Re:Incredibly intuitive notion (Score:3, Informative)
In related news about foxes watching hen houses, the Federal Trade Commission has selected AT&T to operate the new national do-not-call telemarketing list. Unfortunately, AT&T is #1 on the FCC's list of telemarketing complaints for 2001, 2002, and 2003 Q1.
http://www.msnbc.com/news/904102.asp?0cv=CB20 [msnbc.com]
web log spam (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:web log spam (Score:2)
Sure, you might peruse your logs and wonder why there is a referrer from www.some-spamming-site.com, and visit it. Once. Then you'll ignore them.
I suppose there is the issue if you make the referrers available on a public part of your site (as opposed to a password-protected staff section).
I also suppose there is the fact that he's using your bandwidth to generate those refer
Re:web log spam (Score:3, Informative)
Stupid, yes, but who is attributing spammers with intelligence??
Re:web log spam (Score:2)
User-agent: *
Disallow:
Disallow:
Faking Google Link Popularity. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:web log spam (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm, now it seems to be half full of slashdot.org referrers.
Re:web log spam (Score:2)
Re:web log spam (Score:2)
And I believe most/all of the following referrers are faked/spam:
www.sanmarinobasketcup.com[1] 1 : / [go] 0 below minimum threshold (0) www.inchfarm.com[1] 1 : / [go] 0 below minimum threshold (0) www.artifaxx.com[1] 1 : / [go] 0 below minimum threshold (0) www.augustapublishing.com[1] 1 : / [go] 0 below minimum threshold (0) www.aussiebar.com[1] 1 : / [go] 0 below minimum threshol
YES - logs are full of it (Score:2)
I've put other methods in place to track what I want to track.
What amazed me was how slow many in the webmaster community were to catch on to it.
"Hey, has anybody heard of XXXXXXXX server monitoring company? For some reason they're hitting my website, but i've not signed up with them...."
DUH.
Of course (Score:4, Funny)
Show of hands (Score:2, Interesting)
How many others use (something)@slashdot.org for all the email entries for anonymous ftp servers, web downloads, pron logins, etc, etc?
Thing is, Taco, you and your editors are easy targets, and not all that highly respected. Your spamload is completely atypical.
The company I work for gets very little spam, on the scale of a couple dozen a month for hundreds of users. We have no filters in place at all, it's not a problem here.
It isnt random. You'r
Re:Show of hands (Score:2)
fux0r (was re: I call bullshit) (Score:2)
You get a couple dozen a month across hundreds of accounts, with no filtering going on? Is this some recently registered domain with only 3 people actually using their email? You sure your email server is even working?
I have a less than a year old address, never posted on a web page, newsgroup, or on IRC, given out to maybe half a dozen friends, and I'm getting something like 20 pieces of spam EACH DAY. That's roughly 600 a month, from one account.
I won't even start on the amount w
me too. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:me too. (Score:2)
Re:I don't believe you (Score:3, Interesting)
Oxymoron (Score:3, Funny)
Tracking spam (Score:2, Funny)
You track your percentage of spam? And keep historical notes?
WOW! Get a life..
Hrmm...how long can you live without touching a keyboard? Take a deep breath, pry yourself away from the cheap fake leather chair, and go outside. You can do it!
Someone needs to create a support group for people like this...Kinda of like Alcoholics Anonymous.
Meetings would have to take place through Instant Messenger/IRC until you can pry them away from the computer.
email mod? (Score:2, Insightful)
Another idea is to not give your address out. I've only recieved 4 sams for my account [mailto], all of which appear to be from spambots. (let's hope they don't read
What would be the best server-side spam filter operated by root, where upon request I could block sp
cannot stop spam. (Score:5, Insightful)
I couldn't imagine my Yahoo mail without their spam controls... (Unlike Hotmail, which spams you themselves)
Re:cannot stop spam. (Score:3, Interesting)
You stop your own spam when it comes to you. You stop the spam for everybody when you let the spammer send relay spam to a box you control. To see if you are qualified to do this take this simple test:
If your system receives relay spam do you:
(A) Deliver it
or
(B) Not deliver it?
If you answered (B), Not deliver it
Re:cannot stop spam. (Score:2)
Re:cannot stop spam. (Score:3, Interesting)
That's short-sighted - amusing for the tar-pit owner but short-sighted. The strengths of tar-pits is that they keep a spammer occupied for the one session he's using it. He is more likely to recognise a tar-pit than a fake open relay, and thus more of a chance he'll move on.
What happens when a spammer finds that an open-relay is too slow or only accepts x emails at a time before slowing to a crawl - he'll move on to other "proper" open relays.
With -bd's suggesti
Re:cannot stop spam. (Score:2, Insightful)
It's a social problem. It's a problem of greed, laziness, and a general disrespect for anyone and everyone.
No matter what sort of technological wizardry is concocted, spammers, like cockroaches, will slip in between the cracks.
I don't care about filtering spam. I want a system that will prevent the stuff from ever being transmitted in the first place (like maybe a keyboard that would explode, mortally wounding the user if the keyboard detected that the user was going to
Re:cannot stop spam. (Score:5, Insightful)
There are two schools of thought on this,
which I like to call "spam assassin" and "spammer assassin".
People in the spam assassin school are interested in not reading spam.
To them, anything that stops them from reading spam "works".
They would rate things like Baysian filtering as incredibly successful.
People in the spammer assassin school are interested in stopping spam from being sent.
They would rate things like Baysian filtering as a dismal failure that "misses the point".
Intelligent filtering is effective against spam,
but not against spammers.
It may or may not "work", just depends on your school of thought.
-- this is not a
I'm tired of this bullshit. (Score:2)
Accountability has not stopped telemarketers from using the 1:1 network known as the telphone system. Only laws which make abusing a public n
1/3 of all email is spam according to PCWorld (Score:3, Informative)
Re:1/3 of all email is spam according to PCWorld (Score:2)
If it isn't a person sending it to me, it's still spam in my book, so I guess that makes sense
Although others are pegging that ratio closer to 40 or even 50%.
Marketers (Score:2, Informative)
Anyways, when I told him about practices that spammers use like reselling email lists, scavenging webpages for emails, etc... He was outraged. Yes, you read that right. It just went completely against ethics for him, because that is not what they tea
Re:Marketers (Score:2)
Oh wait, you said marketing...
Re:Marketers (Score:3, Interesting)
I recently got spam from Panda entitled "HOW TO FIGHT THE NEW E-MAIL WORMS (Advertising)". Do you think that because Advertising was in the title its OK? Wrong. Tell your marketing friend that he is no better than the rest of the scum that he professes to hate. Or maybe they'd like to add some validation to their sign up, plus leaving the please forward this to anyone who you think might like it crap off the bottom.
Re:Marketers (Score:2)
Consent is the only thing that matters. Anything else will lead to a meltdown of the e-mail system.
My Spam is down -(1/0)% in the past month... (Score:2, Informative)
Porcus Percoquere Ad Nauseam (Score:3, Funny)
(Couldn't find "spam" in my Latatian dictionary, which also doesn't have a section on how to convert the infinitive to past tense, so "to cook pig" will have to do.)
ESPC are spammers (Score:5, Funny)
That's damn right. It's the Who's Who of spam-for-hire operations. Every single one of them spams. It's just that they claim their spam is not spam.
Proletariat of the world, unite to kill spammers. Remember to shoot the knees first, so that they can't run away while you slowly torture them to death.
Gulp (Score:3, Funny)
Sure fire way of stopping spam (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Sure fire way of stopping spam (Score:2)
sendmail -bd used to work, too. For stopping relay spam. It came in, it stayed.
It's more complex now:
http://fightrelayspam.homestead.com/files/antispa
Email is more useful then the phone (Score:2, Interesting)
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,11040 9
"80 percent [of IT professionals surveyed] said they see e-mail as a more valuable communications met
Re:Email is more useful then the phone (Score:2)
1 - I don't have a photographic memory, so yes, I do occasionally get things wrong.
2
This might actually help... (Score:5, Insightful)
It sounds more like these spammers are getting together to find a way to continue sending requested marketing email. Spam has gotten so bad that the baby is being thrown out with the bathwater at the ISP level, before the consumer even implements their own filters. They're afraid of losing the ability to market via e-mail *period*, so they've come up with a way to screen it.
If it actually works as they claim (in terms of unsubscribe rules, identifiability, and so forth) it might be a way ISPs could filter out commercial email that *doesn't* conform to this protocol, while still allowing commercial email to happen.
I'm not saying I think it will (or won't) work, but I think this is probably a sincere attempt to regulate commercial email in a manner that will be acceptable to consumers.
Re:This might actually help... (Score:2)
That's confirmed opt-in. That's the right way to do E-mail marketing because anything you send with it is not spam by default; It was asked for by the recipient(s).
Oh, BTW, people that send "requested marketing email" are, by definition of the term "re
it's a lie. (Score:4, Insightful)
These turkeys just want to keep out their competitors. Shemes to add intelligence to the internet are all designed to make it imposible for any but a select few to send the adverts. They seek legitmacy and government protection for their abuse of a public network. That's not something I'm willing to give up my ability to run a mail server for. Nor do I wish for my ISP to be forced to pay fees for the new service which will garantee spam forever.
So called "accountability" schemes to rework mail protocal are equally evil. The 1:1 network of copper wires known as the telephone system is abused all day long.
The answer is to simply outlaw these obnoxious practices. Unsolicited comercial calls are abuses of public networks and should not be tollerated. People who would abuse their neighbors this way should be fined and put in jail.
Re:it's a lie. (Score:3, Interesting)
It does help. In places that junk faxes get you fined, there are few if any junk faxes. Anyone trying to sell you something will make sure you know who they are and how to get in touch with them. Laying down the fine is not hard. Few companie
Unsubscribe Buttons (Score:4, Insightful)
Now that people know the unsubscribe button is a ruse, it no longer buys legitimacy. Making a big national unsubscribe service that is trusted will give the email marketers another year or two of legitimacy.
The funny thing. Spammers themselves tend to hate spam. I should say, they hate the spam sent by competing spam shops. The competing spam dilutes the audience. They especially hate new spam shops. As a result, most would agree to proposals that reduce the over amount of spam...so long as they don't lose their share of the market.
I wouldn't be surprised to see existing spam shops try and form mechanisms that reduced spam, and closed the market to new comers. It would buy legitimacy and preserve their share of the market at a reduced cost.
Of course, the emarketers are in a tight situation...they know the other people in the group are emarketers looking for any advantage and that they cannot be trusted.
Re:This might actually help... (Score:2)
There is no generally accepted definition of spam.
Give them spam back (Score:5, Interesting)
A number of people here have mentioned the extremely low response rate to spam. This is what allows it to survive. Imagine if their response rate went up something like 5000%, but 99% of those were fake, but realistic responses. This would *instantly* kill the profit motive. More staff will be required to process the fake orders/replies, and they'll have a devil of a time weeking out the true from the false responses. Eventually, the profitability scale will tip, and that is when spam will end. No program, list or change in technology is going to stop spam until everyone stands up and gives it right back to them.
Re:Give them spam back (Score:2)
I do think your on the right track. The key is to find a way to make Spam expensive. After all, the problem is that these people can send out 80 million e-mails and the total cost is the price of a list and a few dollars in bandwidth. We need to find a way to fight back and make the cost of transmission higher.
How? I have no idea.. but I'd love to hear some ideas.
Re:Give them spam back (Score:3, Interesting)
How is responding to their spam and asking for more information fraud? This is actually a decent idea, and I'd like to setup a script to do it. You send me spam, if my bayesian filter marks it as such you get a response from a freshly created mailbox on my mail host asking for more information on your product. If there are web links to be had, to a wget on those to grab some bandwid
The plan is backwards (Score:4, Interesting)
And would you entrust your email address under any circumstances to an organization who's entire business is sending marketing email?
Re:The plan is backwards (Score:2)
This is comparable to Salon's all day premium pass, where by watching a short flash ad gives you free access to all of Salon's prem
Not all the mail YOU don't want is spam... (Score:3, Troll)
God forbid that you, as an individual, forget to uncheck a box when you bought your last DVD or CD or book or whatever online. God forbid that you own up to your own impatience and your click click click lifestyle that results in you glazing over or not even caring about the terms and conditions of your latest purchase.
Does it suck that it's so easy to get signed up for some mailing lists? Absolutely. But you know what? The fact remains that even if you make it as easy as possible and have DOUBLE-opt-IN mailing lists, it's inevitable that someone will complain and accuse you of spamming them. It's human nature. I know from experience.
Are there shady companies scouring around for email addresses? Sure, but any established company with a decent bankroll, employees, investors, would NEVER stoop to such levels - it's too much of a risk. You wouldn't believe the legal mumbo-jumbo I have to go through just to send out my monthly newsletters - and I'm not even considering myself one of those "established companies". All conspiracy theories and "Well I had a bad time with..." experiences aside, as a majority, companies DO respect your wishes when it comes to receiving email - they DO respect your wishes to keep your address private - and they DO make sure that you're happy with the way you're treated. They have too much at stake to behave like children and rebels when it comes to mailing you.
Like a number of other issues bouncing around this world today, the SPAM problem seems to have taken on a life of its own. Everyone's all about jumping on the anti-SPAM bandwagon and complaining on message boards about "The Man" and his itchy SMTP trigger finger. Is spam annoying? Sure. I'll be the first to say that something really needs to be done about all the huge penis emails I get every day - I'm fine with my super-python - leave me alone already!!!
Well you know what? These people that do email for a living ARE trying to do something about it and what do we hear on
These companies know that they need email to survive, and so they're making sure that classic penis/Viagra/Nigeria spam doesn't give them a bad name. Pure and simple. You should be glad that something like this is happening. It might not cut down on the solicitations you get in your email, but at least all those ads will be for things you like, or have signed up for. Ever wonder why you don't see commercials for Gerritol & Depends on Cartoon Network at 2:00am? No old people are up watching it because the advertisers have a well-defined and mature methodology of knowing where and how to promote their products on TV and they don't have to worry about their audience getting annoyed by ads for things that they don't want.
Marketing and advertising is here to stay for good, people - it's everywhere, including email. Even if this plan isn't perfect, we should at least be applauding someone for doing something proactively about the issue instead of reactively. Not all ads are "evil". Spam sucks, targeted marketing about things I'M interested in is welcome - if there's no easy way to filter out the good from the bad everyone loses.
Re:Not all the mail YOU don't want is spam... (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't compare spam email with television ads, there is a fundamental difference.
TV ads help pay for my TV experience.
On the other hand, spam ema
Re:Not all the mail YOU don't want is spam... (Score:2)
One spam costs me a couple seconds to recognize and delete if my Spam filter does not catch it. It also can cost me much longer if I want to not receive it in the future, finding the unsubscription instructions and figuring out if the sender is of sufficient quality that I bel
Re:Not all the mail YOU don't want is spam... (Score:2)
Everyone's going to have their own formulae and constants and ultimately a conversation like that would deteriorate into your run of the mill "I'm right, you're wrong" type of thing, and that's not what I'm up for right now.
Again, I will say, though, that the problems youhave getting off some lists are NOT th
Re:Not all the mail YOU don't want is spam... (Score:2, Funny)
What TV are you watching? That doesn't sound so bad.
When I was a kid watching cartoons I *swore* never to spend a penny at Smith's furniture because they totally over-advertised during Battle of the Planets. And I'm sticking to it. Ditto for snuggle fabric softener, etc.
Now I'm bomba
Re:Not all the mail YOU don't want is spam... (Score:5, Insightful)
There is, in this, a large part of the problem why UCE is viewed in such a dim light. I have highlighted the applicable section. These things should always be opt-in, always and without exception. It really is just a sneaky method of getting people to agree. If it is known that most people will fall into the next-next-next mode when going through a series of forms, and you don't want to send emails people don't want, then your design should plan for this. Have the box unchecked by default, and allow those users who want the email, to check it. You are simply lying to yourself and us if you belive that an opt-out methadology can ever co-exist with the desire to only send email to those that really want it.
Well you know what? These people that do email for a living ARE trying to do something about it and what do we hear on
I agree with you here, it would appear that the companies involved in this are making a valid attempt to get the real spam under control. Though, I think this could be better solved by creating a huge opt-in list (which is not sold or publicly printed) such that, if a company wished to send a bulk email campaign, they send it through this list, and it then gets forwarded on to the intended and willing recipients. Probably also have some preference settings, which a recipent selects during sign-up, that allow for filtering based on interests, thus making the ads more targeted. And lastly, allow for immediate remove, by a user, of their email address from a list. Oh, and the hard part, give some sort of value for allowing one's self to be marketed to.
Of course, there would still be those abusers, you will never be rid of them. We will still get our "Enlarge Your Penis and Keep It Up Forever with Viagra" ads, but then we could start working on this problem, and not bother people who run legitamte mail-lists.
Parent came from a spammer or spam supporter (Score:3, Informative)
I stopped reading right here. There is no such thing as "double-opt-in". The term is used by spammers who have apparently taken the phrase to mean something that does not, in any way shape or form, involve the recipient consenting to receive the e-mail.
Re:Parent came from a spammer or spam supporter (Score:3, Insightful)
Double opt-in is when you ensure that the user relly does want to be sent an email (ie they have to physically do something to get email - it wont happen by default).
That's the first stage of opt-in.
Next you verify that they gave you the correct email address by sending a test email which asks them if they still actually want to recieve your email.
Again to continue they must physically do something - if they do nothi
Image Makeover (Score:5, Interesting)
However, they don't show any sign of being willing to bite the bullet and accept a pure Opt-In model -- which is the only way they can avoid the name "spammer".
It is now escalating out of control (Score:5, Interesting)
That of me receiving SPAM to my personal email account(s), _AND_ that of my domain names being used in the from/reply-to addresses of SPAM email.
The latter I actually find more frustrating. What makes it worse is my domain name is being used in HTML emails - your average [l]user has no idea that it is HTML, and in the message body sees only "EXTEND YOUR PENIS NATURALLY CLICK HERE" in big bright purple letters. The fact that the link goes to http://www.iamascumbagspammer.com/ is not apparent - what they do see however is my domain name in the from line of their email client.
I actually think that the we would be better off if the anti-spammers stopped pursuing their cause and just let spam take out the Internet's email system.
Then we can start again from scratch.
Surely SMTP's time is up.
ESPC Link -- Sure, I'll give my E-mail address (Score:2, Interesting)
Do they think turkeys vote for Christmas ?
The IETF has an anti-spam research group (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps because that that is the very last thing these people actually want?
Are you sure it's spam? (Score:2)
I thought I was getting 50 spam messages a day. Then I found out it was just my wife wanting me to get a bigger penis.
Taco, you track your spam by quarter? (Score:2)
Slightly OT?: Why do you get so much spam? (Score:2)
I think it all depends on how you use your email address.. Lately, when I need to post my email on a web page... I will generally create an image with the text of the address in there.
This will require either sophisticated software (which most spammers wont be using)
It mig
Spam (Score:2)
Reminds me of... (Score:2)
The article is right, they won't follow their own protocol, they will not service the public, and they will fail miserably.
The poor things... (Score:2)
Those who are not so net saavy who I have had experience helping get set up on the wired have complained that they don't get any spam. They feel inadequate, or something, and feel left out.
I try to resist the urge to lay smackage down on them. I really do try.
The Four Rules Regarding Spammers... (Score:2)
Rule #2: If you think a spammer is telling the truth, or being honest, see Rule #1.
Rule #3: Spammers are stupid.
Rule #4: Spammers define spam as "That Which I Do Not Send."
This isn't rocket science, folks.
This is not the way to stop spam (Score:5, Informative)
To say something constructive now. There are two neat server side spam filtering projects I really like because neither uses IP-based blacklists (blacklists can bring a lot of collateral damage and require frequent judgement calls).
Spamprobe [sf.net] can be run from
The Distributed Checksum Clearinghouse [rhyolite.com] also runs server side and uses fuzzy checksums to identify mail that is being received by a suspiciously large number of mail hosts around the world. A brilliant idea which works better than you may think. I have never seen a false positive with this system, and it misses about 1/4 of incoming spam. Effectiveness will improve as more hosts join the distributed checksum system!
They just can't leave me alone. (Score:2, Interesting)
It wasn't that long ago you could search for 'Lumos' and get one hit (me). Then it was some company [lumos.com], then a Harry-Potter-ish font [geocities.com], (then a hundred other Harry Potter things) and now I'm a spam registry.
Anybody else out there with extremely rare last names but the domains are all taken by companies anyway?
I guess I should be grateful that they opened up .us and I was able to jam myself in there before somebody else did.
ESPC (Score:5, Informative)
The ESPC website also has a box where you can add your email address and receive "information" from them about the ESPC itself, which I would *ahem* not recomend. ;-)
Re:ESPC (Score:3, Funny)
nai@networkadvertising.org
...
webmaster@doub
...
webmaster@advertising.com
...
(see http://www.networkadvertising.org/espc/members.as
Some people do want the marketing information (Score:2, Interesting)
At issue here is what each person calls spam. To some people, anything that is not personal mail from a friend or family member is automatically spam. Not everyone is this stringent about considering any and all marketing to be spam.
What if, because of laws and technology to eliminate spam, you were unable to get nearly instant quotes for auto insurance or mortgate rates? What if, because of laws and technology to eliminate spam, you could not get price notification from a favorite vendor?
In reality,
Nothing new (Score:2)
Not Surprising: just like drug dealers (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the same with this SPAM thing. They want fewer "little guys" around so they try to force the supply of SPAM down which increases the effectiveness of their own SPAM. Not altruistic by any means, but if it lands fewer junk emails in my box each day, it's fine by me.
Re:Meaning (Score:2, Informative)
Maybe from the Ancient Greek lume [tufts.edu] meaning outrage, maltreatment, corruption, damage, etc.
Or they've been reading too much Harry Potter.
Re:Eugenics a cure for Spam? (Score:2)